The High Country of Victoria lends itself to the creation of myths and mysteries.
There are many unexplained disappearances of people in that huge area but there are many other mysteries that might be less dramatic but almost as important.
Just defining the plateau itself is hard enough. It does not look much at the way we think of a plateau, but if we run a rough ring around the eight major peaks we will be pretty close. Those peaks are Mt Baw Baw (1564m), Mt Erica (1524m), Mount Kernot (1387m), Mt Mueller (1460m), Mt St Phillack (1569m), Mt St Gwinear (1509m), Mt Tyers (1319m) and Mt Whitelaw (1486m).
There are many flat spaces between them, but they are small and the plateau is a rugged place. Most of the aboriginal sites identified beyond the river valleys are on protected, fairly flat spaces, well below the peaks.
The Aborigines did not live permanently in this part of our world but the Kurnai were well aware of the Bogong moths as a valuable food source and went onto the plateau to feast upon them. They were a rich and valuable source of nutrition – and it is said they tasted good. When roasted the moths were about the size of peanuts and perhaps just as tasty. It was mostly the Braiakalung (hence Briagolong) tribal group that 'owned' this area, but other clans of the Kurnai also harvested the moths at times.
I'm not sure how the Aborigines felt about these mountains other than the food to be had, the moths, and that was only for a short season. In normal times food was scarce on the plateau and it made far more sense to live and hunt on the plains, the lakes and the foothills south of it. While we have barely scratched the surface of the archaeology of the area it seems that the high country camps were all in river valleys, where there was water, shelter and food.
There among the tribal stories there were some dire predictions made about going that high - in one legend it was believed that there were many aggressive and extremely venomous yellow snakes up there, in very large numbers.
Baron Ferdinand von Mueller was the first white explorer to visit much of the plateau. He was a government botanist and he was among those peaks in 1860. He named Mt Erica, for the heath there, and Mt Mueller for himself.
Charles Tyers, the Commissioner for Crown Lands, published a map showing the plateau in 1844 and describing it is a very high place often covered in snow. Alfred Howitt visited the area in 1858 with the artist Eugene von Guerard.
Some readers will know, and perhaps regret, my interest in the origins of place names. Mount Baw Baw is an aboriginal word to do with echoes but it also said that Bo Bo, a name used for the mountain in the early days of the white presence meaning big, or high. It is abundantly clear that the white man had problems writing down aboriginal pronunciations.
Surveyor Turton, recently featured in this column, and Surveyor Allan, of the Black and Allan line, built a cairn on the summit of Mt Baw Baw in 1870 to provide a baseline for the Geodetic Survey of Victoria. It was to be 1903 before Baragwanath, Director of the Geological Survey of Victoria, prepared the first real map of the plateau.
The 1858 Geodetic Survey of Victoria provided a number of fixed, known points from which surveyors could work in opening up the countryside. The Director of this survey was Robert L.J. Ellery, a doctor, surveyor, astronomer and surveyor, an amazing man who was later appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Relatively nearby Mt Ellery (it is over eastward, on the Errinundra Plateau) is named after him, and at 1284 metres high it is almost as high as the eight guardians of the Baw Baw Plateau. We do have rather a lack of high mountains on this most ancient of land masses.
The lack of maps did not stop people going into this high and slightly mysterious area. There were roads (of a sort) up to Omeo and Aberfeldy in the late 1870s There was a track from Tanjil Bren to Matlock, on the 'gold route' north from Walhalla to Woods Point cleared between 1882 and 1894. In 1889 a track was cleared from the Upper Yarra to the Thomson River. It connected with the tracks between Reefton and Aberfeldy and between Tanjil Bren and Matlock, and then went on to Mount Erica, then Mt St Phillack and finally to Mount Baw Baw.
Those tracks became a surprising part of the history of the Baw Baw Plateau as a recreational and tourist area will one day follow this story. How it all came about reflects the sort of people we were.
This was going to be a story delving into some of the mysteries of the plateau, some of the legends and tales, some of which are extremely sinister. I'll end with one of those mysteries – a species of frog found nowhere else.
One of the best-known inhabitants of the plateau is also one of the most scarce. Philoria frosti, the very well-named Baw Baw frog is listed as extremely threatened. The name does not come from a love of frosty places, but for Charles Frost, who was an amateur snake-studier. In 1900 or 1901 he captured a tiger snake which immediately regurgitated five live frogs.
Walter Baldwin Spencer, a naturalist, identified the frog as a new species in 1901. It was around two inches long, brown on top and with a blotchy brown and yellow skin underneath. It is an odd frog, having no webbed toes and producing tadpoles which have a large food sac attached, from which they live until they turn into frogs. I have been told that the tadpoles can survive in the dampness of the mosses up there and do not need to be in water. I'm not sure of that but I think it might be true.
In 1910 a breeding program was set up for this rare little frog. It was eight years before the program was successful. Phil the frog is still a very threatened species
Now, assistance please?
I could use some help here in trying to find out what happened to the Honour Roll from the old Tynong Hall. Bruce Weatherhead and I would like to know. It has been missing for decades and it seems unlikely that it went to the tip.