Walhalla

Sunday 13th September 2026

The engine ready to pull us up the hill from Thompson

My accommodation is in a steep valley and while there was a dew overnight I don't think there was a frost. The living room window and front veranda overlook a creek that runs alongside the road and there's a couple of trees about to flower, a fruit tree, possibly a wattle and lots of Cyanatha ferns.

Fruite tree blossom with a busy bee

As I walk down the main road to the railway station for my train trip the spring gardens are beautiful.

Spring gardens beside the creek

 

Rhododendrons, camellias and fruit trees in blossom dominate, and magnolias and daffodils are also plentiful; the sun is now risen above the steep hills but it's still not warm.

A daffodil to generate daffodil envy

A rather lovely magnolia

I walked past any number of interpretation signs of historical buildings and places and past some interesting geological features, but I will have time to explore all of those later this morning and early afternoon. 

No interpretation sign for the chimney but the adjacent folded sedimentary rocks are great!

I do pause at some puddles, the edges of which are fringed with fruit tree petals. It's rather artistic.

Petals and puddles

Historic cottages are very picturesque. As are the tumble down  sheds but I suspect the maintenance on the former would be a little horrendous.

I'm guessing turn of the century but it could be earlier.  The sulphur crested cockatoos were most at home!

The engine on 'backwards' to better control our descent on the line

I choose my seat on the train, as suggested by the volunteer staff and in a carriage with leather seats rather than the open carriage, which looks as if it was very much third class.

Some vintage luggage

I admired the camellias alongside the tracks at the station and listened to the grey shrink thrush somewhere up in the trees

Camelia bushes beside the tracks at the station

The train journey follows the river through a remarkable, very narrow valley. The other side from the river is just cliff cutting through sedimentary rock that's been tilted to 90°

The railway line, which is a 2'6' narrow gauge, runs along Stringer's Gorge is quite a feat of engineering. It was completed in 1910 shortly before the gold mining ceased. It was all dismantled in the 1950s and then short sections were subsequently rebuilt for its current purpose.

Stringer's gorge is beautifully. Wooded, but I am told that's at the height of the mining, it was completely denuded of vegetation to fuel the boilers for the mine.

The Road bridge at Thompson

The river at Thompson

Although the commentary is not working, the conductor tells me a little about the line, including the fact that he, as an 8-year-old in 1953, rode the line as far as Thompson and then walked to Walhalla with his brother and they got a lift back to Melbourne.

The engine back on the 'right end' of the carriages to pull us up the hill

He also told me there used to be a flying fox  arrangement across the valley to Happy Creek, which was right at the top of the hill, and the seating was an arrangement that would give the current occupational health and safety police a nightmare.

One of the lovely waterfalls along the gorge

I visit the graveyard, which of course had separate areas for the different denominations, and another area for infants of minors, but I can't see where the latter is. The cemetery is terraced, by necessity.

Many graves reflect the affluence of the era - but not all

I want a tree on my grave!

I like the grave that has a magnificent tree growing on it. Okay, it's an exotic tree, but the grave is 150 years old and it makes me think when I am buried I would like a tree planted on top of my grave.

Lunchtime beverage with view

Given my food supply situation, I decide to brave lunch at the Wally pub. Panko crumbed squid rings seem quite safe but it's delivered with an interesting looking dressing on the little side salad; I enquire about its ingredients and the waitress returns with an assurance for me, but less than a minute later the chef runs out and tells me there's garlic in the dressing and the tartar sauce is actually aoli. It does rather reinforce my reluctance to trust pub food. Anyway, the squid rings are okay. And the glass of wine is pleasant enough and the view across the valley at fruit trees in bloom and other exotic trees backed by gum trees on the hills is rather lovely. 

I divert into the post office and the volunteer in attendance is the gentleman who came to deal with my water last night. 

Antique infant gown on display in the post office residence

We chat about this and that and I look at the various exhibits. The residence was obviously quite substantial but it still would have been a hard life.  The post office, in 1868, handled 157,383 items!

Smocking detail on an infant gown

I stopped to look at the bank vault and recall the conductor on the train telling me that before the railway gold would be transported by armed stagecoach.

It was quite an affluent town!

I look at the Mechanics' Institute and the fire station and divert into the corner store which has nothing resembling food. 

There is a small museum at the back of the corner store that reminds me of the harshness of life back then.  With conditions in the mines and lack of clean water (the creek was highly polluted) infant mortality was high and life expectancy short.  The story of one young lady related how she had been exposed to smallpox on the journey to the town, and subsequently became very ill with it, which had the townfolk worried. She and her husband were confined to their home and a 8' fence was erected around it with an armed guard stationed. Food and water were left for them at a gate in the fence.  When she died, the townfolk refused to carry her body through town to the cemetery and some miners were paid well to dig a grave behind the house.

The corner store

Other information reminded me of the role that the Chinese played on the gold fields with their Market Gardens. It would be interesting to know if the Chinese here suffered the same as they did at some of the gold fields further West. 

The rotunda in all its elegance is the central point in the town and sits opposite the Star Hotel which I am informed requires the selling of a kidney in order to take a room there. 

The Star Hotel

Many of those buildings have been burned down and rebuilt since the town was first formed. 

Stairway to ??
Evidence of past fires

Unusual ....

I then move on to my tour of the long tunnel mine and it's rather fascinating. They tunnelled and mined for 10 years before they actually found the gold-bearing reef. But once they did, it repaid their efforts and produced enough return to build Collins Street in Melbourne. For one year I think it was the richest gold mine in Australia.

Inside an adit of the Long Tunnel Mine

In the early days there was much work done by physical labour - our guide demonstrates

Miners' disease (asbestosis) was a real hazard and many miners succumbed and died of it until the water pump drill was introduced; ironically that was introduced to save the company money rather than to save miners' lives. 

Deep and complex!

Chimney to take away the fumes from the boilers in the mine

Around 50 miners died either due to drowning when the pumps failed or to explosive accidents. 

The boilers in the mine generated power and that was actually used to power Walhalla, including its street lights, until 1914 when the mine closed and Walhalla did not get electricity back until 1998!

I walk up to the area that was the Chinese Gardens and is now a campsite. There is nothing to see and there is a sign that says campground closed so I do not go beyond the gate down into the valley where the gardens were located.

Walking back, I spot a lyre bird down near the creek but it's not hanging around for me to photograph it.