The travails of John Dight, miller of Dights Falls

The Sketchbook tells us:

“Dights Falls, a natural rock barrier across the Yarra River are named for a pioneer settler, John Dight, although they were first seen by John Grimes, the original explorer of the Yarra, in 1803. Grimes sailed up the Yarra from its mouth at the head of Port Phillip Bay, but went no further than the falls which blocked his passage.

Dight, a flour miller, saw the potential of the falls which he believed could be utilised by harnessing the river to his purposes. He erected a flour mill and millrace nearby. His project was dogged by trouble. The Yarra fluctuates greatly from season to season, and even from day to day. Unlike the reliable English millstreams, with which DIght was familiar, the Yarra River can be a capricious, not to say rebellious servant.

When he sought to import steam-powered milling machinery from England to supplement the uncertain supply of waterpower, he was again unlucky, fo rhte ship carrying the machinery was wrecked en route to Melbourne.

When a second shipment did finally arrive, the colony’s trade was adversely affected by a depression. As if this weren’t enough, the mill was seriously damaged by fire, though after repairs it operated for a time before a second and larger fire destroyed the mill completely. It is not surprising that this succession of disasters convinced Dight and others that the falls had a very limited potential for industrial use.

The falls still serve as a natural barrier to the movement of traffic, and in earlier times they were certainly a major factor in limiting expansion upstream. Had they not existed, the Yarr might have become a highway enabling people to move inland until stopped by the greater barrier of the ranges.”

The Tote tunnels myth turns out to be common Aussie pub lore

I journeyed out of the ‘wood today to North Carlton, and bought from Alice’s Bookshop two books which will stand this blog in good stead. My uncle had an Alice’s Bookshop addiction for a long time. Its owner is an old Cambridge man, a fact noted on his website, a bookseller for 20 years. The first was Bill Brodie and Brian McKinlay’s Collingwood and Fitzroy Sketchbook, published in 1978 when the Convent was still inhabited by nuns and the Eastern Freeway was just opened. It is a lovely hardback and has taught me some fascinating tidbits which I will feed you with over time. It is one of a series of 175 published in Adelaide as the Rigby Sketchbooks which also include Old Melbourne Hotels Sketchbook, River Yarra Sketchbook, and Richmond and East Melbourne Sketchbook.

The other was J.M. Freeland’s The Australian Pub; An Illustrated History of the Development of the Australian Pub from the 1790s to the Present one of the more interesting books to come off Melbourne University Press’s Presses. I declared to those I met for coffee at the Paragon Cafe that I was hitherto an amateur pubologist. The book was last owned by Thomas Hazell from 11 April 2005. Google suggests he is a Melbourne University fine arts academic and one-time president of the Dante-Aligheri Society.

And so I learned from Mr Freeland that the myth which I have come to know relatively recently about secret tunnels under The Tote is one of frequent occurrence: Continue reading “The Tote tunnels myth turns out to be common Aussie pub lore”

New Yarra River Flickr Group

There is a long list of Flickr groups about things Melbourne here (including Abbotsford, Collingwood Children’s Farm, Abbotsford Convent, Richmond, Fitzroy, Kew, Fitzroy North, Collingwood, etc.).

Someone has set up a Yarra River group. Here it is.

This photo is by Alan Lam. His photos are stunning. I am noticing a lot of talk about something with the acronym “HDR” in relation to photos that are a bit more stunning than usual. I’m working on working out what that is exactly.