Woodend, which contains about one thousand two hundred inhabitants, lies one thousand eight hundred and forty feet above the level of the sea.
It is at this point that the railway from Melbourne to Echuca attains its greatest elevation, and the line can be quitted at the Woodend or at the Macedon station for the purpose of exploring the more accessible portions of the mountain.
Although this epithet is generally applied to the huge abutment that is so prominent an object in the landscape for a distance of fifty miles in a southerly direction, the Mount is in reality a spur thrown out by the Great Dividing Range, which here attains an elevation of three thousand three hundred and twenty-four feet above the level of the sea.
Enjoying a cool temperature at night in the hottest period of the year, presenting an endless variety of romantic scenery and commanding a succession of prospects of great extent; this lofty region has been selected by many Melbourne residents as a place in which to spend the villeggiatura.
The Governor possesses a charming retreat.
Its general features resembling those of the old timber-framed houses —beloved of all artists —in Cheshire and Shropshire, which commands a lovely outlook. Near it are the beautiful and well-kept grounds of Mr. Charles Ryan; they contain an epitome of the flora of all the zones of the globe —from the deodars of the Himalayas and the majestic firs of the Yosemite Valley to the yews and hollies of old England.
The view from the house being a typical one, it may be described as such. There is a foreground of lawn sloping downwards to a bosky dell, and dotted here and there with the stately or graceful forms of trees brought together from all continents, and representing widely different geological epochs —from the araucaria of the Permian period to the latest variety, of the queenly rose.
In the hollow beneath, are three small lakes gemmed with water lilies, and giving back reflections of silver cloud and azure sky. These are the eyes of the landscape, full of liquid light, and constantly varying in expression.
They are set in a framework of living enamel composed of masses of flowers as rich in colour as they are diversified in form; the spires and bells of the foxglove towering above their neighbours, and the tiger-lilies glowing like ruddy flames in the midst of snow-white rhododendrons and the delicate pallor of blush roses.
Then comes a belt of forest timber, with many shades of green, and here and there a flash of vivid crimson, produced by the leaves of a dead branch, with occasionally, a gleam of yellow or a streak of warm brown or sober grey. Then a great expanse of open country, not monotonous in colour, for in places there are patches of cultivation, green as an emerald, and elsewhere there are others resembling sheets of malachite, interspersed with squares of faded amber, all of them changing incessantly as the glints of sunshine chase the cloud-shadows over the surface of the landscape.
Here and there a smoothly- rounded mamelon breaks the dead level of the plain, and at the extreme limits of the champaign to the right and left, the undulating outline of a range of hills abases itself as it approaches the south, so as to admit of a prospect of the bay shining like a sheet of silver in the sun while in the far distance the Dandenongs veiled in a tender robe of mist, look like a bank of pale blue clouds lying along the line of the horizon.
The southern slopes of Mount Macedon
The southern slopes of Mount Macedon are dotted with villa residences, the highest in point of situation being also, by a piece of unusual good fortune, the most artistic in design.
Concealed among the folds of this heavily timbered range of hills are waterfalls flowing over slabs of rock that in their regular stratification resemble the work of Cyclopean artificers —gigantic monoliths, isolated or in groups, that recall the huge cromlechs of the Druids; fern-tree gullies, where the sunlight never glances on the ice-cold water that flows darkling below and mysterious recesses of the forest almost untrodden by the foot of man.
Some extensive areas have been permanently reserved so as to prevent the drying-up of the streams which take their rise among the wooded heights of this portion of the Great Dividing Range, and a State nursery has also been established.
Northward from Woodend
Northward from Woodend, on the main trunk line, is Carlsruhe, and from this village —a farming centre in the midst of an agricultural district —branches off a railway to the west; on this line the first station is the flourishing village of Tylden, where the splendid quality of the soil has led to large areas of it having been brought under cultivation, with apparently the most satisfactory results.
Further on is Trentham, a mining settlement, which lies upwards of two thousand two hundred feet above the level of the sea, and about two miles from the station are the Falls.
The way thither lies along a tolerably well-defined bush track, and the roar of the cataract is heard for some distance before it is reached. In the winter months, when the river Coliban is in full flood, a great body of water leaps over a broad ledge of rugged rock into a chasm about ninety feet below. The shelving banks above and the precipitous sides of the pool which foams and eddies in the depths beneath, are covered with trees and shrubs; while the spray, which rises like a diaphanous cloud of silvery mist keeps them in vivid and perennial verdancy.
Historical data exrtacted from: "Picturesque Atlas of Australasia" a three-volume geographic encyclopaedia of Australia and New Zealand compiled and published in 1886.
Descriptive Sketch of Victoria
|
