Journey to Beaufort

Perhaps there is an essence of melancholy order on a wintry pre-dawn, when the horizon offers a hint of a weak promise to come in its faint hues. This was the case as I trundled down to the railway station to board the first train to Ballarat. The brisk linger of Avalon strictures tingling my skin, albeit glad with layers of cloth and a very unfashionable beanie on my near white-haired scone.

It was around 6:30am: on the opposite side to the platform where I was standing I could see huddling and shivering, early morning office workers with their designer suitcases and bags, anxiously looking at the next arrival screen. Their train, predictably, was late and their fogged breath resignations palpable. Further along the platform, the station Kiosk had just opened and stacks of the three morning newspapers on offer had not, as yet, been diminished. The aroma of coffee beans slaked across the tracks separating platforms, teasing me in the process with its seductive perfume. This is what I mean by the orderly melancholy of winter - few smiling faces, an occasional cough, an acceptance of the commuters' fate until they escape with retirement: the mortgage and the kids gone.

The six carriage Ballarat bound train arrived on time, (the country bound trains generally do) with only a few intrepid souls on board. I could pick a favourite to spot to sit - on this occasion toward the rear of the train. It is one of those 'me' things. Outbound journeys I sit to the rear, whilst inbound journeys I sit toward the front. I am sure a learned Psychologist or a Taxi Driver could explain why I adopt such an approach, at the very least it may make for a not very interesting PhD thesis I suspect -'Why Plod sits where he sits on a train?'

A pleasure of the hour or so train journey to Ballarat undertaken during the week, and on the first train at that, is the quietness, apart from the hum of the diesel engines and you have the lure of a warm possie. It's my favourite excursion, passing through places that I am familiar with and a landscape that has seen countless plods over the years. In Victoria, our country train network was once considered of the finest in the world. You could, generally, travel to all parts of the State by train. Victoria Railways (or VR as it was affectionately known) was around the turn of the 20th Century the largest single employer in the State. It was the majestic days of steam and of neat bluestone stations staffed by wise, patient Station Masters and Porter Lads in neat uniforms with an air of calm authority about them as they undertook their duties. You had scruffy but hard working train drivers and guards and conductors too, and they would spend their entire working lives with the railway. Following the end of the Second World War (1939-1945) and picking up speed in the baby-boomer 1960s, the economic rationalists got their grubby hands on public infrastructure services such as railways. By the corrupt mantra of their creed, 'if it doesn't pay it goes nowhere', the extensive network was steadily run down and truncated. With this closure went the wealth of knowledge, of skill and trade, and of community. The railway stations, neglected, fell into slow dispute with time and became a canvas for vandals. Fortunately, as the 21st Century unfolded, the realisation that service is a duty of government began to gently re-assert itself. Some of the railway lines began to re-open - not many - but a few to delight of the many, and not just the train travel fanatics or Gunzels as they are humorously known.

As I relaxed in the comfy universal class seats (there are few vestiges of the old first class & economy class services left except occasionally on long haul journeys). The view offered from the train is expansive due to what I call the 16:9 ratio windows (as to my eyes this is what they appear). From this vantage point along the smooth steel riband, I saw the July dawn greet its abiding countryside with devotion. The probing rays of first light spread across the rime heavy soils. You could see cows heading obediently to milking sheds and sheep already grazing on lush winter-fed grass shoots. Birds of all persuasion flapping and squabbling (for them the day is an excited quest of food and flirt). There was road traffic, with foggy exhausts spewing gases, briefly stopped at railway level crossings. I could see distant and near mountains riding with their cloudy garlands and the faint vestige of a drenched-by-light half Moon easing in the western sky. The further Melbourne and its urban arioso dolente were left behind the greater contentment through me grew, as it always does on this journey.

Arriving at Ballarat - which has a rather unfair justification of being around five degrees colder than Melbourne on most days - I had to concede the mathematics was valid this time. It was icy but clear. However, Ballarat, located 120 kilometres/74 miles from Melbourne was only a waystop on my journey. I was headed to a small town called Beaufort, located a further 50 kilometres/31 miles westwards of Ballarat. I had arranged to catch up with an old chum from my crazy youth days who lives in the town and whose friendship has patiently endured across the decades. We probably see each other once a year, at all sorts of locations, though rarely in his home town. But before I could continue my journey it was time to wander around lovely Ballarat for a couple of hours prior to the departure of another train to Beaufort. For me, Ballarat is my favourite rural location (and a place, apart from the South Island of New Zealand) where I would like to one day permanently reside. Ballarat too is rich with history; lavish with old buildings and charm, yet modern in outlook and posses an easy verve. Its many streets, laneways and cantons I have come to know well, especially some its coffee shops (and every single location I can acquire white chocolate). After visiting my preferred coffee palace, I was back at the railway station to join the train to Beaufort which in turn travels onto the regional City of Ararat 208 kilometres/130 miles from Melbourne.

Alighting mid morning at Beaufort, I meet my old friend under calm skies and we headed off, as we do, for a modestly energetic ramble about the town, visiting such places as the war memorial and obelisk (which is reverently found in almost every Australian country town). We chatted, debated and laughed as we plodded. We hoicked up into the hills nearby, stopping to boil a billy of tea, which under sufferance I drank, weeping for want of a coffee instead. By mid afternoon we ended up at the Beaufort Tourist Information Centre located on the main drag (slang for street) as I was after a small book on the history of Beaufort. Thereafter, we descended into a nearby Pub for an early Dinner, eased with an ale and two and three and plenty etc.

Beaufort has a population of just over 1,000 and is sited at 387 meters/1,270 feet above sea level. It is surrounded by parts of the Great Dividing Range (the fourth longest mountain range in the world which extends for 3,500 kilometres/2,175 miles through Victoria and up along the eastern seaboard of Australia to Cape York Peninsular at the very northern tip of the State of Queensland. In this range is also located mainland Australia's highest mountain, Mount Kosciuszko at modest, by world standards, height of 2,228 metres/7,130 feet. The mountain is named after the famous Polish Nationalist, General Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817), who also fought with distinction on the American side in their Revolutionary War.

The land at present day Beaufort was occupied for millennia by the Jajowarrung people before the European invasion. The area was known by the indigenous custodians as 'Yarram-Yarram', (pronounced yah-rum/yah-rum) meaning waterhole or waterholes. The location is interdicted by a number of creeks and was considered by the aboriginal tribes as a reasonably fertile place. Yarram-Yarram was also used for ceremonial and meeting purposes. This quickly changed with European imposition in 1838 when the first Squatters arrived following the Explorer (the Scots born Surveyor) Major Thomas Mitchell (1792-1855) who journeyed from Sydney through the area in 1836. Mitchell was known for being a fine navigator but with a ferocious (and perhaps precocious) temper. Further settlers soon arrived and the name Beaufort adopted, taking its cue from a Welsh village in Monmouthshire. Gold was discovered in 1852 (following on from the rushes at Ballarat) and the population in the Beaufort district swelled to around 100,000 at one stage. It is reported that a total of 450,000 ounces of gold was produced in a two year period from 1855-56! The Gold boom soon blew itself out with the town becoming established through tamer and more enduring farming related industries such as Sheep, Wheat, Timber and Dairy. These industries continue to this day along with nearby Wind Farms at the Challicum Hills. It is also claimed that in 1923 the ubiquitous Vegemite was invented in Beaufort by Dr. Cyril Percy Callister. Vegemite is an acquired taste - though I use it (seriously) to treat mouth or gum ulcers!

After a delicious meal at the Pub, I dawdled back with my chum, the short distance to the Beaufort railway station. Whilst waiting for the return train to Ballarat and then onward to Melbourne and home, I chanced upon this view of the station form a level crossing nearby. With my chum as lookout (for any unexpected trains), I sat belly-down on the track and took the photograph you see - not a wise thing for an old Plod like me as I had to get back up again. The station itself opened in 1875 and has been in continuous use since, though, its glory days are well past as you will discern in the photo. You can see a small but quite old Steam Engine shed where locomotives were once housed, coaled, watered and maintained. Up until the 1970s Beaufort station's large yard was active handling timber and farm produce. Though all of this has since transferred to road transport leaving only four passenger train movements a day to pass through plus an occasional freight train going from somewhere to somewhere but not to Beaufort.

Bidding my friend farewell and scarlet cheeked from the few ales. I happily boarded the train for the enjoyable and uneventful clackety-clack back along the sleeper ties to home. I was delighted, once more, to have been away (for a few hours at least) from the City and to have been in good company. I'm already planning another trip to Beaufort, come the spring, to see the small native orchids make their seasonal claim.