Today, the 1st of September, marks the official beginning of Spring in the southern hemisphere, and wattles are starting to flower in the bush and in gardens around the country.

Wattles feature prominently in Australian ceremonies, literature, poetry, art and song from the 1830s to the early 1900s.

But until the early 1980s, three sets of colours were unofficially associated with Australia.

1. Red, white and blue formed the colours of the Australian flag.
2. Blue and gold were Australia’s heraldic colours, seen in the wreath on the Commonwealth Coat of Arms granted by royal warrant in 1912, whilst also being chosen as the colours of the ribbon of the Order of Australia in 1975.
3. Green and gold represented Australia in many ways – the green symbolising the colours of the Australia bush, with gold symbolising wattle, grain harvests, sheep’s wool, mineral wealth, beaches and sunshine.

The colours of green and gold have also been informally associated with Australian sporting teams since the late 1800s, but were never formally adopted as its “national sporting” colours.

However, on 19 April 1984, Governor-General Sir Ninian Stephen officially proclaimed Australia’s national colours as green and gold.

The gold most closely resembled the shades of Australia’s national floral emblem, the Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha).

https://www.facebook.com/groups/forestcommisionheritage/posts/8715527325140207

This photo from the State Library comes in black and white as well as colour versions, so I guess it was sold as a postcard.

It also features in the Leader Newspaper published on 30 August 1902. The caption says the road was recently constructed with an unemployment scheme.

I clambered all over those soggy and leach infested hills as a young forester and I reckon the photo was taken a couple of km south of Gunyah Junction on the Toora-Gunyah Road, near the turn off to the old Mt Fatigue firetower.

The scrub on the left side of the road is the current Gunyah Rainforest Reserve, with the monumental Gunyah Tree nearby.

Ironically, this area of about 2000 acres was set aside in June 1882 for “growth and preservation of timber” after concerns from early foresters about the wastage of forests in the hasty, and ultimately failed, scramble to settle the Strzelecki Ranges for farming.

Interestingly, the trees are labelled black butt which was an early, and now rarely used, name for mountain ash (Eucalyptus regans), or “King of the forest”.

As you can see the understory is sparse but that’s not uncommon for dense and mature mountain ash stands.

I’ve seen it suggested that the understory looks as though it’s been recently burnt, and while it’s hard to be certain, bushfire generally kills mountain ash trees, and the photo was taken three years before the major bushfires in 1905-06 which swept through the hills behind Toora and killed 7 people.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/196582413

Hardwood poles have always been a very high value forest product with a royalty much higher than sawlogs.

In 1946 the Forests Commission produced some 250,000 lineal feet (76.2 km) of telephone and electric power poles, mostly for the Post Master General (PMG) and State Electricity Commission (SEC).

From about 1947, as the power grid expanded during the post war period, durable species such as Gippsland grey box was getting harder to find so the SEC allowed Class 2 of round timbers such as white and yellow stringybark.

From about 1957, Class 3 species such as messmate and mountain grey gum were also in use.

The use of creosote and CCA to protect poles from decay began in about 1972 while treated pine and concrete poles were in widespread use from the mid 1990s.

Each hardwood pole carried a metal inspection tag which indicated its date, class, and species.

SEC Annual Report 1946. https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1945-47No26.pdf

Sundial Peak in the Grampians National Park sits at the southern end of the Wonderland Range and overlooks Lake Bellfield.

It was named by early settlers who noticed that the 2360-foot-high peak received the first and last rays of sun each day.

In 1968, form-five students at nearby Stawell Technical School, under the guidance of their maths and science teacher, the legendary Ralph Sinclair*, were making their own sundials as a class project.

One student asked, “Why is there no sundial on Sundial Peak,” and so began the quest to design and install one.

Then State forest, permission was granted for the installation from the local District Forester at Stawell, George Jennings.

It was decided to make the sundial for the princely sum of $50 which was covered by the School Principal and Hawthorn footballer, John Kennedy, who said he would just “find the money”.

In early November 1968, the 150 kg black granite sundial, mounted on a special frame made by the school’s sheet metal department, was delicately carried over 2 km from the car park to the mountain peak by the students along the difficult and winding track. They also carried sand, screenings, timber, cement, water and watering cans.

When correctly oriented and mounted on its cairn the sundial was carefully grouted into place.

The names of all the school students involved in the project were embossed onto an aluminium strip and placed under the new installation.

A large number of Forests Commission staff, civic dignitaries, school teachers and journalists joined the students for the unveiling.

• Ralph Sinclair was also my maths and science teacher in the early 1970s. Very deservingly, Ralph was awarded an Order of Australia in 2012 for “service to science education”. I can also personally attest that he made a huge and lasting impression on so many young lives.

The Sherbrooke Forest pole plot is at the southern end of Coles Ridge Track, between Belgrave and Kallista.

The study plot in wet forest was paired with another site in drier bush near Winton, on the old Hume Highway.

Both research plots are thought to have been established in the 1930s by Post Master General (PMG) Department to test the durability of different species of hardwood poles under field conditions.

Initially, each plot had 160 poles with different treatments including charring and creosote. Some poles were capped while others were not. Some wooden cross beams were also part of the trial.

Copper Chrome Arsenic (CCA) pressure treatment of pine poles was available in the 1930s but didn’t come to dominate the market until the 1970s when durable hardwood timbers became harder to get.

Over time many of the test poles rotted away and were not replaced but some still have PMG metal identification tags. Others just have numbers.

Somewhere in the Forests Commission’s files at the Kallista was a map and key to the research treatments.

It’s also thought that the CSIRO may have taken over monitoring of the plots at some later stage.

In the 1970s the scrub was regularly slashed by the Commission, but the site doesn’t look like it’s had any maintenance for many years and is being slowly reclaimed by the forest.

Info: John Llyod – FCV Ranger at Sherbrooke, 1968-1999.

Photos: Tom Fairman 2020

In about 1900, experiments were conducted in England by Mr William Powell to perfect a new process of preserving wood.

Mr Powell, who owned a sugar refinery in Liverpool, had noticed that the wooden staves supporting the vats on the side where the molasses was spilt lasted longer than those untouched by the solution.

Pondering the reason, he decided that sugar must have some durable effect on the wood, and by experiment gradually evolved the powellising process.

William Powell took out patents in 1904 for his new timber preservation process and companies were formed to exploit his idea around the globe.

The process was very simple. Timber was first cut to size such as sleepers or floorboards and then stacked onto small rail trucks which were run into large iron tanks about 15 ft high and 25 ft deep and then made watertight.

A thin syrup of molasses and other chemicals was poured into the tanks until the stack of wood was completely immersed. Arsenic was added as a preservative against termites.

Brought to boiling point by steam passing through pipes the solution was kept at high temperature for about three hours, or longer depending on the size of the timber, and then allowed to cool.

After about 24 hours the process was complete, and the solution was drained off. The treated timber was then taken out and placed into drying kilns where it was kept for about 12 days.  Sleepers were not dried in the kiln but were stacked wet.

It was claimed that the Powellising process could convert both hardwoods and softwoods into nonporous, homogenous timber that was harder, stronger and tougher than the timber in its original state. It was also claimed the treated timber would resist dry rot and termites.

In Australia, the process was first demonstrated in 1905 at a small plant near Perth. The Western Australian State Government then contracted the company in 1908 to supply 230,000 treated jarrah railway sleepers for the Port Hedland – Marble Bar railway.

A plant was also built in Sydney and Powellised timber was used for telegraph poles for the NSW railways, flooring for the Sydney Harbour Trust and wooden blocks for paving the streets of Sydney.

In January 1911, the NSW company wrote to the Victorian Conservator of Forests, Hugh Mackay, seeking details of timber royalty charges and information about the availability of mountain ash forests in the Upper Yarra and Neerim districts.

The Managing Director of the NSW parent company, John Rose Gorton, (father of future Prime Minister, John Grey Gorton) applied for a permit in July 1911 and the proposal was submitted to State Cabinet for consideration.  After some due diligence and checking on the financial status of the company, an offer was made in September 1911 for two, 1,000 acre cutting areas with a further 2,000 acres in reserve.

In 1912, the Victorian Powell Wood Process Limited (VPWPL) was established, and during its first year of operations work proceeded rapidly on the construction of a sawmill and timber processing works at Powelltown.

To support the mill the company built a town around it, and to provide transport, it built a 3 ft gauge tramway, some 11 miles long from Yarra Junction.

It’s a long story, but it was called a “tramway” for legal purposes. An Act of Parliament was needed to build a railway, something not easy for a private company to achieve. The Yarra Shire, and not all the locals were entirely pleased about a private line either and would have preferred a Victorian Railways one.

And even before any rails had been laid, a Baldwin 2-4-0 steam locomotive, “Little Yarra”, arrived in Yarra Junction. The line to Powelltown was in operation by May 1913 carrying machinery to the new mill site.

The Powelltown tramway was unique in providing a passenger service and it also carried goods for farmers along the Little Yarra valley. The service continued until the construction of an all-weather road to Powelltown in the late 1920s.

Beyond Powelltown the company built a further two miles of tramway into the bush to access its log supply. This network was progressively extended over the subsequent decades and serviced many small sawmills in the bush.

However, the company was a financial failure and only operated for one year. It had secured a lucrative contract to supply 100,000 Powellised sleepers to the Trans-Australian Railway, then under construction to link South Australia with Western Australia.  But of the first delivery of 6000 sleepers, only 500 were accepted, and only nine met the contract specification. The sleepers were cracked and distorted in shape. It was thought that the drying process and sap replacement had damaged the timber. Not surprisingly the contract was cancelled.

This was not the only example of the failure of Powellised timber. A Royal Commission was held by the Commonwealth Government into the fiasco, but the WA Government was uncooperative and refused to give evidence. The Commission heard damming testimony that Powellised sleepers in NSW had been a failure as early as 1909. It was the same story in New Zealand where 66% of the powellised softwood sleepers had to be removed within two years.

Just why the company went ahead in 1911 with such a huge investment at Powelltown after the inconclusive results in WA and NSW remains a mystery. But by September 1915 the company had folded with huge losses.

The site at Powelltown then reverted to a sawmill which was operated successfully for many years by the Victorian Hardwood Company.

Ref: Stamford, F. E, Stuckey E.G., and Maynard, G L. (1984). Powelltown. Light Railways Research Society.

https://www.victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/maps/centralhighlands/centralhighlands28082020/index.html#11/-37.8862/145.9530

http://media.lrrsa.org.au/ptc/Powelltown_Tramway_Centenary_spreads.pdf

Timber bridges demonstrate the fundamental significance that State forests played in the rapid development of the new colony of Victoria after the gold rush of 1851.

Two Acts of Parliament passed in December 1880 and December 1884, authorised the construction of 89 new railway lines, more than doubling Victoria’s network to over 2,900 miles by 1892.

The legislation became famously known as the “Octopus Acts” in reference to the tentacle like web of tracks created. The period was characterised by blatant political interference in railway planning with parliamentarians shamelessly lobbying to have railways built through their own electorates or even to serve land developments in which they had a direct financial interest.

From the early 1870s the Victorian Railways maintained a policy of building all new bridges from timber to reduce costs, except in special circumstances which required the use of more permanent materials like brick, steel and concrete.

Although cheaper to construct, the timber bridges required more frequent and expensive on-going maintenance. Most of the elements such as sleepers, girders, cross beams, piles etc would have been progressively replaced with locally sourced hardwoods.

Over 2000 wooden bridges were built on the railway network but most of these lines are now closed. The bridges then fell victim to decay, neglect, floods and bushfires, but a few operational bridges remain, mostly on heritage railways like Puffing Billy.

In December 1976, the Maldon line was closed by the Victorian Railways, but the Castlemaine and Maldon Railway Preservation Society was quickly formed, and ten years later reopened the line from Maldon station to the Bendigo Road level crossing.

The six surviving wooden bridges on the Goldfields Railway are historically, scientifically and aesthetically significant and are listed on the National Trust database at the state level.

The Muckleford Creek bridge was originally constructed in 1889 and as part of the railway restoration works, the Army Reserve’s 91 Forestry Squadron (The Woodpeckers) milled structural timbers during their annual camp at Puckapunyal in October 1989 using their 60-inch sawmill. The large logs were sourced from State forest.

The Woodpeckers were then invited as special guests at an open day hosted by the railway preservation society on 19 May 1990.

But maintaining access to large dimension and specialty timbers from State forests for these types of community projects is currently under a cloud.

Photos courtesy of the RAE collection PV521. https://raevictoria.com/

http://vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/search/nattrust_result_detail/69245

The Army Reserve was always willing to help the Forests Commission and rural municipalities blow stuff up.

In November 1976, sappers in the 7 Field Engineers Regiment (7FER) from Ringwood, plus some other engineers from Gippsland, helped the Horsham Shire remove an old wooden bridge on Bulgana Road, east of Stawell.

About 63 kg of plastic explosives, 11 kg of TNT, a bag of ammonium nitrate, 60 detonators and primers, plus several hundred metres of detonating fuse was enough to shatter a 50 m long timber bridge on the Wimmera River.

It was replaced by a low-level crossing.

Source: RAE photo collection.

The Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) had a large and active engineering branch for making stuff… as well as breaking stuff…

Most overseers, as well as some foresters, were trained in the use of explosives to “blow stuff up” such as removing stumps and rocks from roads. Districts usually had a small powder magazine tucked away in the bush for storage of gelignite and detonators.

However, the legendary FCV demolitions expert, Jock Paxton, was on-hand for large or more complex works like road construction and quarry blasts.

In January 1977, a minor demolition project was arranged to remove the silt from a small fire dam on Clematis Creek in Sherbrooke Forest, which just happened to be adjacent to the main Belgrave-Kallista Tourist Road.

In his thick Scottish accent Jock directed proceedings from the roadside, while the difficult and dirty work of wading through the mud, digging holes and loading the charges fell to a couple of forestry school students, Geoff Pike and Megan Varty, working over their summer vacation.

Blast holes, about 3 inches in diameter and about 3 feet deep, were dug on a grid pattern into the gooey mud. The holes were filled with granular ammonium nitrate mixed with diesel, which is an ideal “lifting charge”. Half sticks of gelignite and detonators were then inserted into the blast holes.

The charges were electrically wired with micro delay fuses. The sequence of ignitions was set to direct the blast upstream of the small dam and away from the wall.

Local staff were on hand to observe the blast including Ranger – John Lloyd, Overseer – Max Seamer and Assistant Forester – Phil Evans

All was set to go, and the forestry students were given the honour of detonating their hard work. They hid behind a nearby tree and Megan flicked the blasting switch.

KABOOM !!! … mud went flying everywhere…

Maybe there had been a miscalculation, but the effect was mud mayhem.  Tree ferns were also laid flat in concentric circles around the dam.

The blast certainly cleared the dam as intended but also spread an inch-thick layer of mud across the adjoining Belgrave-Kallista Road.

Luckily it was a quiet day with not too many tourists around. There was no traffic management in place other than Jock standing on lookout. But one car came down the road from Kallista and slid on the gooey mess into an embankment.

The shire grader happened to be passing from Upwey and scraped the road clean of mud while the Olinda tanker came down to give it a wash down.

Megan and Geoff spent the remainder of their afternoon propping up flattened tree ferns.

But Jock’s valiant utility had been parked on the roadside, and forgetfully he had left the passenger-side window down, so the entire inside, including the seat, steering wheel and dashboard became smothered with thick mud and debris. The tray of Jock’s work ute also received a pasting.  Staff tried hard not to laugh.

Everything was cleaned up and life resumed to normal, but the sorry tale of the layers of sticky mud inside Jock’s car became the stuff of local legend. But sadly, there is no photographic evidence of the embarrassing escapade.

Blasting by departmental staff and crews continued until about 2008 when there was a serious accident at a quarry near Marysville. All blasting is now done by qualified contractors.

https://www.victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/fire-sidebar/memories/211-evans-bernie-gelignite.html

Edge-notched index cards were invented in about 1896 and have holes punched around the borders. The top right-hand corner is also clipped to help stacking the deck. The holes could be clipped to search and sort information.

For foresters, these cards were commonly used to identify timber samples.

Using a 10X magnifying lens, or a microscope, the key structural features of the timber sample were first identified. For example, softwood or hardwood.

A long knitting needle was inserted into the hole for the feature and the cards shaken. Those cards which matched fell onto the table. The fallen cards were then restacked and the next identifying feature selected with the needle. The whole process repeated until there was only one, or maybe a few, cards left.

Each sample card had a more detailed description of the timber.

It was a very simple and effective binary (yes/no) decision process to search through hundreds of timber types.

Needless to say, computers replaced the old wood technology cards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge-notched_card