Walhalla

[Timbo]

Hi all,

Walhalla would have to be one of my favourite 4wd destinations in Vic. Up in the high country, the air is so clean and the bush scenery is amazing. It's such a historical place that if you are any sort of history buff, you'd be in your element. The tracks there are some of the toughest tracks I've driven but there are also really easy tracks if you want to just cruise along taking photos.

The cemetery is eerie.. right in the middle of town. It's built on the side of a mountain, literally. Some mates and I climbed up the side of it, almost on our hands and knees at one point. Little did we know there is an easy walking path located a bit further up! Reading the tombstone is a real eye opener, with quite a few young children being buried there. I think it was at the time of the plague that went through there.

There's a cricket ground up the top of a mountain there too. That's pretty awesome too see. Makes me wonder who gets the ball when someone hits a 6..

If you're looking for somewhere to go with the family or just your mates, do yourself a favour and head to Walhalla.

[MickyD]

Sounds like a pretty nice place to go. Reminds me of a 4WD spot my old man used to take me to when i was a kid.

It had an old cemetery where you would camp in an town with population 0....

I remember it had a huge hill climb called the widow maker...I'm sure theres heaps of Widow Makers around but i remember camping only 100m from the grave sites which was pretty eery as youngster...haha

[Timbo]

Sounds interesting :D

The fact that at Walhalla, they buried a really fat lady at the bottom of the hill because she was too heavy to bury with the others.. is a real stand out bit of history. lol. Think her name was kitty kane or something.

[MickyD]

Sorry guys, just figured out that place me old man used to take me to when i was a kid....Wannangatta!

Ive just been surfing the web and saw some cool pics which brings back some memories, like the grave site and the Widow Maker hill.

Have a look attached...

Wow, the pics really bring back some memories. Wish i was there now!

I remember some spanked up Toyota's trying to get up the hill and could'nt get to the top. Now that i think about it I don't think it was possible to get up there. I kinda remember the top was a pretty full on steep climb for atleast 10 metres...Not possible. In fact if you did make it you would just get stuck by trees at the top and would not be able to turn around.

I remember hearing stories of cars rolling down and just kept rolling into the river 300m away.

Another story was a guy who started to roll and pushed his wife out of the car to save her and ended up rolling over her, obviously killing her and he kept rolling into the valley. Their bodies were buried in the cemetry.

Anyways, sorry for highjacking the thread G-Unit, I should have started a new one!

[4.2 shorty]

So which part is the tough mountain to get up?

[MickyD]

It's cemetry hill. I wrote on the pic where we used to camp and all that but its hard to read.

Theres a bit of history there. That pic i showed was an artist's drawing back in the first world war when Jim Barclay was murded. He was the cattlemen owner back then.

Below is a quick summary of the story...

The year 1918 saw thousands of Australians continuing to fight and die on the battlefields of the Great War. With carnage and family grief the daily fare of the newspapers, it was the finding of a body in Victoria's high country that stole the headlines.
At Wonnangatta Station, a place still alive in the psyche of the mountain cattlemen, the manager, Jim Barclay, had been murdered. The police manhunt, despite many theories, singled out a suspect but nine months later that man, John Bamford, was found dead on Mt Howitt.
To this day the mystery has captured the imagination of many and has become folklore. Various people claim to know the truth of the story and theories abound, but all are contradictory. The facts themselves have become obscured by time and memory.

If you have a good look at the picture you can see where the murder happened in one of the homesteads, body dragged through the paddock, opened the gate, cut the fence on the other side and dumped the body.

[chester]

Hey timbo i love getting around that area aswell,Kitty Kane was a prostitue(spelling) in the gold rush days,she was a rather large woman but being the only one in the area at the time was a very successful one.Don't Know how or where she died but they were taking her body back to wahalla when the wagon broke a wheel or something, being the middle of summer the fella's could'nt handle the smell any longer so they buried her where the wagon broke.It is on the aberfeldy side of merringtons crk trk,there is a sign marking the spot.Have you been to the cemerty's at store point,edwards reef and tombon?

[big_fletch]

Absolutely a awesome place to go, been up there twice in 2 months.. Wouldn't hesitate to go up again, highly recommended to take the family..