The railway line to Gembrook is a primitive construction, which well matches the world through which it passes. The line is of a narrow gauge, and it mounts ever higher until it reaches an altitude of many hundreds of feet above the level of the sea. Throughout its length it winds round and round, skirting modest precipices and passing through avenues of trees. The scenery is indescribably beautiful. At many points a vista opens up along which vast stretches of country appear, hemmed in upon the horizon by the gleaming waters of the ocean. Nothing that I have seen in Australia so much resembles a ride in Switzerland as this journey from Fern Tree Gully to Gembrook. At the summit, on a hot summer day, the air is keen and bracing, and in the hotel at midsummer we found a fire blazing. This ride, apart from the charm of the scenery, offers a study in colonisation. Part of the country is the “bush” proper, left in all its native wildness. Everywhere we found marks of the visit of that dreaded enemy, fire. Huge gum trees, calcined and dreadful looking, stood out against the blue sky. Fierce flames had ravaged the district, sparing nothing. Elsewhere we found the work of clearing going on. Wooden chalets rose in the centre of the bush, and around these men had commenced to group small fields already yielding produce. Little by little the bush is disappearing under the hands of small farmers. At one place we found a miracle in the way of productiveness. Eighteen years ago a farmer purchased some hundreds of acres of bush. It was one mass of “scrub,” as desolate a place as one would find anywhere. To-day it is the first “nursery” in Victoria. Upon its cleared ground thousands of fruit trees grow, and these are sent all over the States. The soil is wonderfully rich. As we wound round about the estate in the train, and observed these hundreds of acres in cultivation, and reflected that all this work had been accomplished within twenty years, the whole scene resolved itself into a mirror of this great country. From scrub to fertility—it is the history of Australia. And the best is yet to come, when an enlightened forward policy will encourage immigration, and so arrange affairs that the vast spaces of the biggest country in the world shall be filled with a happy working population.
CHAPTER XII
BUSH HOLIDAYS
The ideal holiday in Australia is a holiday in the “bush.” There are two Australias—one of the cities and towns; another of the country and the bush. The “country” is the cultivated portion of the land, reclaimed from desolation. In whichever direction the traveller passes, he soon encounters the “country,” and begins to understand something of the enormous wealth of the soil.
Great farms come into view, covered with a multitude of sheep and oxen and horses. The soil in the north-east of Victoria is one of the richest on this great continent. In many places all that is needed is to fling the seed upon the soil, and harrow it in lightly, with the certainty of a speedy and rich crop. Land that was bought but a few years ago for £4 an acre now sells for anything from £50 to £150 an acre. And therein, perhaps, lies one of the great problems of this country. It is the land problem. These immense spaces are not divided amongst a multitude of small holders. They are the property of a comparatively few men. A huge blunder was made when the country was in the infancy of its development. Young Australia should have profited by the example of the Old Country, and never have allowed a land proprietorship like that which is the handicap of the Motherland. The Governments are already perceiving their error, and land is being repurchased for the State. They understand that no country can prosper as it should while the land is at the disposal of a few men who can command their own price, dictate their own terms, and gamble in a commodity which cannot be increased in bulk. Now, happily, in Victoria the large territories are being split up, and townships are consequently springing up, consisting of men who woo the land to fruitfulness. Towards Warrnambool the remnants of the clearing of the bush are in evidence, thousands of gaunt trees, without leaf or bark, white as phantom trees, stand in great spaces waiting to be cut down. At their base runs the plough and the seed-planter. One day the clearance will be completed, and this whole country, brought under complete cultivation, will be among the most fertile in the world.
* * * * *
One of the fairest holiday spots in Victoria is Lorne, where bush, gully, and sea meet.
Primitive, retired, quiet, fifteen miles from a railway station, reached by a difficult road which passes through the bush, Lorne is the last word of holiday solitude combined with happy companionships. No policeman is there; none is ever required; the doors and windows of hotels and pensions are left open all night; there are no marauders to fear. The wide balconies surrounding the pensions are transformed into bedrooms at night, and men and women sleep out, while the sea quietly croons to them throughout the period of darkness. And every wind brings the scent of the eucalyptus to the sleeper. Lorne is a delightful place—a combination of Devonshire and Switzerland; that is, of course, on the small scale. The hills rise from the water’s edge very much as Clovelly rises from the sea. The illusion that we are in Devonshire is aided by the presence upon the table at every meal of clotted cream—a dish beloved of Australians. The numerous hills surrounding Lorne, with their zigzag paths and waterfalls and gullies, are reminiscent of Switzerland, and here again the illusion is aided by the style of the boarding-houses. For everything save the balconies recalls the Swiss pension among the mountains. The fever of the city and the town has never descended upon this retreat. There is no fear of man lying upon bird or beast. The kangaroo and the wallaby do not move when the visitor appears upon the scene. Even the snake leisurely crawls away at the approach of the walker. As for the birds, they are a delight to behold. Little creatures clad in the most gorgeous plumage gather round our feet and pick up the crumbs we drop for them. They have not the slightest fear of us. It is likely they have never heard the detonation of a gun nor the bark of a pistol. Larrikins are barred—by distance—from coming to Lorne; hence the birds have never been chased by rude ruffians. St. Francis, if he came to Lorne, might easily imagine that he had lighted upon some of his old brothers and sisters who had not forgotten him. Besides these birds of beautiful plumage we have our perennial friend the jackass, banished by rude noise from the city, here entering into happy relations with us. Parties of laughing jackasses perch on trees at our very door and make the house ring with their infectious laughter. Life al fresco for us as well as for them; it is a magnificent change from the roar and nerve rack of the city.
Whoever comes to Lorne must walk. There is only one carriage excursion. All other promenades are made on foot. The choice lies between the sea, the mountain, and the gully. Few folk can resist the sport of cray fishing amongst the rocks upon the shore. Once commenced, it becomes a veritable fascination. They have a simple method of snaring the fish. Two bamboo canes—to the end of one a decayed fish is lashed; to the end of the other a loop of wire is attached—and that is all. But it is not quite so easy as it looks. The art consists in lowering the bait into the rock pool, where a crayfish may possibly hide. If the fish is there, he smells the bait, and in a moment crawls out to seize it. Then the second cane is lowered, and the loop passed under and around the creature’s tail. Tickled by the wire, the fish curls his tail. That action seals his doom. The wire loop is immediately tightened, and the astonished crayfish, instead of regaling himself upon the bait, is hauled up to the shore. It requires more than a little cleverness of manipulation to ensnare the fish. There is no difficulty in enticing it from its rocky fortress to attack the bait; the trouble is to encircle the body with the loop.
The great excursions, however, are to the mountain and the gully. Parties leave in the early morning, provided with luncheon and the indispensable “billy” for tea. In every direction waterfalls and fern gullies are found.