100 Unearthing Gippsland’s High Country secrets

UNEARTHING UNEARTHING GIPPSLAND’S GIPPSLAND’S HIGH COUNTRY HIGH COUNTRY SECRETS SECRETS

GIPPSLAND’S HIGH COUNTRY IS AS GIPPSLAND’S HIGH COUNTRY IS AS BEAUTIFUL AS IT IS TREACHEROUS. BEAUTIFUL AS IT IS TREACHEROUS. SOARING FORESTS, VAST PLATEAUS AND SOARING FORESTS, VAST PLATEAUS AND HISTORICAL SECRETS HARBOURED BELOW HISTORICAL SECRETS HARBOURED BELOW BLACKBERRY THICKETS AND YEARS OF BLACKBERRY THICKETS AND YEARS OF BUSHFIRE DEBRIS. BUSHFIRE DEBRIS.

WORDS BY ANITA BUTTERWORTH | PHOTOS BY DOUG PELL WORDS BY ANITA BUTTERWORTH | PHOTOS BY DOUG PELL

Gippsland’s High Country is as beautiful as it is treacherous. Soaring forests, vast plateaus and historical secrets harboured below blackberry thickets and years of bushfire debris.

But every now and again, natural disasters and passionate history buffs like Newborough’s Noel Lees coax the alpine wilderness into giving up her secrets. The huts, the burial sites and untold stories swallowed up decades ago are slowly being brought back to life, for new generations to explore.

Noel’s love affair with Gippsland’s High Country region, which takes in a huge area north of Walhalla, started completely by chance, after his work as a carpenter took him to Erica in 1979. While the stay wasn’t meant to be permanent, his wife didn’t want to leave the picturesque town. After an encounter with the head forester of the then Forest Commission, Noel ended up being offered full-time work with the Commission, which led to a three-decade long career.

He marked coup boundaries with VicForests, graded logs and studied to become a Forest Officer and eventually worked as a Forest Ranger looking after campgrounds, walking tracks, wildlife and continuing with compliance work. Throughout his career, Noel amassed a huge knowledge of the mining and forestry history in the area.

And it led to one of his most significant discoveries in 1992.

“I was marking a boundary down the lower side of the road, above Bell’s Creek and it took quite a while,” Noel explained. “And when I was marking it, I came across a steel railway line. I knew it was there because it was on our map. I followed it up the hill and across the road and that’s when I found the hut. There was a horse stable and a toilet still standing just down from it.”

Noel had found Bell’s Hut – a rare example of a pre-World War II era Victorian Forestry Commission Hut.

“I knew it was Bell’s Incline and this was Bell’s Incline Camp. So, I put a five-metre boundary either side of the railway line because it was being logged both sides. And because I was a Forest Officer, I made the contractor at the time drag his log right up to the top of the landing. The railway line is still there today but covered in blackberries. I’m hoping the Victorian Bushwalking Club are going to head out with metal detectors and try and find it and clear it."

“I retired in 2017 but I’d been to the hut prior to that, the front wall had fallen down. A wattle tree had come down at some stage and pretty well demolished it. This is more than 20 years after I found it.”

The hut is the only remaining forestry hut in the Thomson, built after the 1939 fires to salvage burnt timber. Volunteers from the Victorian High Country Huts Association, including Noel, as well as Rudi Paoletti and the Pajero Four Wheel Drive Club of Victoria have since worked tirelessly to repair the damage.

Noel’s passion and knowledge of Gippsland’s Alpine High Country is as vast as it is colourful. He’s bursting with stories of forgotten townships, and bygone eras.

“BB Creek near Jericho used to be called Bare Bottom Creek. The miners, when they went in through Loch Fyne to get down into the township, they used to slide on their backsides and when they got there, they had bare bottoms. So, they called the creek Bare Bottom Creek.

“Now when Jericho was built, and there’s hotels, and just like towns here today, when the women came on board, they were pretty prim and proper and there was no swearing, so they couldn’t call it Bare Bottom Creek so they called it BB Creek, and that’s what it’s known as today.”

As he discovered with Bell’s Hut, Noel acknowledges the bush swallows her secrets just as quickly as she gives them up. It’s the reason why he’s so passionate about sharing his stories and historical knowledge with new generations.

“I think it takes people back. You go into the Jordan, and you look at the cemeteries and you look at the hydraulic sluicing and all the old equipment in the valley, it just takes people back to how hard it was.”

Bennett Family House Site

UNEARTHING UNEARTHING GIPPSLAND’S GIPPSLAND’S HIGH COUNTRY HIGH COUNTRY SECRETS SECRETS

Noel has also been part of the Aberfeldy Track project. Along with cofounder Rudi Paoletti the group is responsible for many of the significant historical finds, and the creation of a touring route which includes signage to help keen four-wheel-drivers, and a new generation, explore the historic areas and learn of Gippsland’s incredible past.

The work that Noel has done over the past forty years has helped plug gaps in history and lay old ghosts to rest. He’s spent countless days restoring graves near Matlock and at Red Jacket, where many ventured to try and find their fortune in gold during the rush.

“When we cleaned the ground, we found mound after mound after mound. I reckon over 40 graves we found there. We even used metal detectors and found the old clover leaves with the numbers on them. Some of them were a foot under the ground when we found them.”

And while his body may not be quite as able as it used to be, Noel still tries to venture up into the hills as often as he can. And each time, he’s helping piece together the vast historical tapestry of Gippsland.

“We find amazing sites, house sites, huge chimneys. We’ve found well over 2000 mines and probably three times that amount in old town and building sites.”

And as long as the mountains continue to echo their stories, Noel will keep listening, and sharing everything he learns.

“I think today people live for the moment but there are people like me that put a lot of work into preserving our history as so much of it is destroyed.”

Grave at Jericho Cemetery Whitelaws Creek

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