COMMUNITY

Nowa Nowa’s history has been dictated by it’s geography. It sits at the junction of an estuary lake and the forested foothills that rise up to form Victoria’s high country, with the nearby locality of Wairewa nestled in the fertile sheltered valley of Hospital Creek.

Such a place can provide food from the water, marshlands, and forest: the waterway provides easy transport to the coast, while the freshwater creeks supply not only water but a guide up into the hills. These connections allow the trade and social connection vital to all people.

The Krowathunkooloong people of the GunaiKurnai nation inhabited this area for countless millenia, creating a culture that is intimately connected to the land.

The arrival of European people to the Nowa Nowa area created a time of great conflict and change from the mid to late 1800s.

Nowa Nowa township

Nowa Nowa was formally gazetted as a township in 1888 and became a thriving community based around timber harvesting, milling and transport. At the height of the industry, there were six sawmills in Nowa Nowa, and one in nearby Tostaree, together employing over 300 people supplying railway sleepers, power poles, bridge timbers and construction timber for housing.

Like many small, remote townships in Australia Nowa Nowa survived and flourished on the back of intense community spirit and a capacity to innovate and make do with what was at hand. Local people pulled together to build halls, fund schools and churches; they also held balls, dances, gymkhanas, sports days and film nights. They worked hard and played hard!

Travelling in and out of Nowa Nowa was initially by boat, then on very rough tracks and eventually by train. The daily service to Melbourne took over 10 hours from Nowa Nowa. This meant the businesses that gradually grew  in the  town – the hotel, post office, general store, tea shop were hugely important not only for the goods and services they provided but also the social interaction: the glue that holds a community together.

Lake Tyers Trust

‘The Trust’ was established in 1863 by Church of England missionaries, providing a safe refuge for the few remaining Aboriginal people after decades of conflict with Europeans. Over time many Aboriginal tribes from elsewhere in Victoria were relocated to the Trust. Management of the Trust was taken over by the state government in 1908, and a policy of ‘concentrating’ all Aboriginal people in Victoria on the one reserve. After years of activism and the creation of the Aboriginal Lands Act 1970, Lake Tyers reserve was handed over to the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust. Today the Trust is a community of approximately 100 Aboriginal people.

Wairewa

European settlers arrived in the valley in the late 1800s and many of their descendants, now fourth and fifth generations live and work there still. Different farming activities have been trialled on the now cleared land which was once tall forest: dairying, sheep and beef farming, orchards and vegetables. The forest also supplied timber for construction and sleepers for the railway, and also wattle bark for tanning.

Community was everything in this valley, where communication and travel to the outside world was slow and difficult. Living conditions were simple, with some families living in simple timber houses with earth floors into the mid 1900s: electricity arrive in the valley in 1966, allowing refrigeration and electric lights for the first time.