Tikalara – spirit of the place

This special place has a heritage of many thousands of years occupation by the Wurundjeri people. The confluence of the Birrarung (Yarra River) and Mullum Mullum (Creek) was an important recreational, hunting and fishing area. For a period of months each year, the Wurundjeri lived here in permanent bark dwellings. There was a river crossing, fish nursery and freshwater mussel farm. On the hilltops, grass seed farms and myrnong farms in the gullies.

Along the Yarra River’s southern bank a travel route was maintained by regular burning. A Songline from this place follows present day Warrandyte Road, Tindals Road and Old Warrandyte Road to Andersons Creek. At Pound Bend there was a final great intertribal corroboree of the Kulin people in 1853. This was organised by Simon Wonga to allow his people to draw the curtain on their traditional life and find a way to survive in the new world that had been thrust upon them. For fourteen days and nights in March 1852 the Kulin people held traditional ceremonies and played the traditional game of marn grook.
This information is from a 2018 paper by Jim Poulter and Bill Nicholson

The boardwalk of the Main Yarra Trail takes you past the last stretch of the Mullum Mullum Creek and then you can see the Yarra River flowing down from the aptly named Laughing Waters. There is are resilient populations of platypus in the creek and this is a breeding area.

Through the trees on the opposite bank of the creek is Pontville Homestead, Victoria’s earliest pioneering residence still on its original site. In 1837 Major Charles Newman first cleared the area for grazing livestock. After violently dislocating the Wurundjeri people from their permanent campsite on the high ground he built the homestead, completing it in 1844.

A viewing platform is right at the confluence of the Mullum Mullum Creek and the Yarra River. It is the most beautiful, peaceful and haunting location.

This video was filmed on a sunny day at the end of June, when it was still permitted to walk in areas away from your home. I am so glad I snatched the time between two COVID19 lockdowns to walk the full 22km length of the creek and more!