Gippsland

History of Australia

history of Melbourne

major flooding events in Victoria

major weather events in Australia

bushfires in Australia

Melbourne

geology and geography of Melbourne

Polish explorer Paweł Edmund Strzelecki, during his 1840 expedition across the region, bestowed the name to honor his sponsor Gipps, overriding Angus McMillan's earlier “Caledonia Australis.”

“Omeo A” in 1836 taken up by John Pendergast was an early European pastoralist from the Monaro district, NSW

Angus McMillan, passes through the Sale and Bairnsdale regions on his gruelling exploratory trek from Omeo to the Old Port north of Port Albert and named the Mitchell River and the Avon River

Paul Strzelecki

Port Albert became the main port and administrative centre for Gippsland, an important cargo port for Melbourne and Van Dieman's Land and thrived during the gold rush being the main port for access to the Omeo and Dargo gold fields region, but the introduction of the railway greatly adversely impacted the port's importance which would result in a decline of the town from the 1880's.

post office opened 1848 (renamed Sale 1854)

town plots sold 1850, gazetted 1851; borough 1863

gold discovery on Livingstone Creek, Omeo in 1851 reported by geologist Reverend William Branwhite Clarke (1798–1878), which then drove the formation of a more formal township at Omeo during the 1850s, with a hotel and stores by 1856 and a post office by 1858

Port Albert became a key port for gold rush traffic 1850s via the overland route to Omeo via Sale, Bairnsdale which took four to six weeks

in the 1880s the rich river flats were cleared and crops such as maize, hops and hemp were experimented with, with maize (corn) quickly becoming the main crop of the district - the threshed crop was carried about 20kms down the Snowy River by riverboat to Marlo, where it was transferred to coastal freighters for the journey to markets in Melbourne - however, the trip down river was never guaranteed however due to the Marlo Estuary sand-bar which often halted shipping

the State Coal Mine at Powlett Coalfields opened after a miners' strike in NSW starved Victoria's railway and coal industries. The coal was taken to Inverloch by bullock teams then shipped to Melbourne. Initially a temporary tent town it soon was established as Wonthaggi and a reservoir was built. The Nyora-Wonthaggi railway was extended 22km to Wonthaggi and built in just 10 weeks with the 1st steam train arriving in 1910. Much of the town was burnt down in a fire in 1911. A Queen Anne style railway station was built in 1912. In 1915, the State Coal Mine was the 1st mine in the Southern Hemisphere to be electrified, and the Wonthaggi Hotel opened. Rail cars were introduced in 1951 and the last passenger steam train ran in 1961 while the last goods steam train ran in 1965. The State Coal Mine at Wonthaggi closed in 1968 (re-opened as a tourist attraction in 1982) and the railway de-commissioned in 1977.

large areas of state forest, containing giant stands of Mountain Ash and other valuable timbers, were burnt. Approximately 575,000 hectares of reserved forest, and 780,000 hectares of forested Crown Land were burnt.

over 1,000 homes were burnt, and the townships of Narbethong, Noojee, Woods Point, Nayook West and Hill End were destroyed. The townships of Warrandyte, Yarra Glen, Omeo and Pomonal were badly damaged.

subsequently the Country Fire Authority (CFA) was formed

fires eventually merged to become the Great Divide Complex, which lasted 69 days and burnt approximately 1,048,000 hectares of public and private land.