Mount Sabine, Victoria

Mount Sabine is a rural locality in the Shire of Colac Otway, Victoria, Australia.[1] The small locality is located deep in the Otway Ranges, and is mostly densely forested.[2]

Mount Sabine
Victoria
Mount Sabine
Coordinates38°38′02″S 143°44′34″E
Postcode(s)3236
Location
LGA(s)Colac Otway Shire
State electorate(s)Polwarth
Federal Division(s)Corangamite
Localities around Mount Sabine:
Barramunga Barramunga Kennett River
Tanybryn Mount Sabine Kennett River
Tanybryn Tanybryn Wongarra

The first major track between Colac and Apollo Bay passed over Mount Sabine, and was marked on maps by 1864 at the latest.[3] The Land Act 1869 opened the area up for selection, but only a limited number of selectors took up land, mostly along the Apollo Bay or nearby Beech Forest tracks.[3] The track was rough; in 1880, travellers complained that the road was "almost impassable" and that they had "to wade up to their knees in mud and slush", and in 1889 a correspondent reported the track from Apollo Bay to Mount Sabine as involving "the most formidable climbing ever met with on a road in this country".[4]

A timber industry had been established by the 1870s; the Otway Ranges were a Timber Reserve from 1873 to 1879, and a sawmill at Mount Sabine was reported in 1874 as having been operational for some time.[3][5][6] The amount of selectors in the area increased in the 1880s, in large part due to a rumored future railway through the area; however, while railways were built into the Otway Ranges, extensions to the Mount Sabine area never occurred.[3] There were high hopes for farming in the area, with the Colac Herald speculating in 1885 that Mount Sabine would "become converted into the most fertile of agricultural and pastoral countries".[7] Some farmers did report limited success into the twentieth century, but in the long-term these hopes were also ill-fated.[8][9]

Transport remained a major problem throughout the attempts to settle the Mount Sabine area. Expectations in the 1880s and 1890s that a railway line would be extended towards Mount Sabine did not eventuate, and a strong campaign for an extension of the Forrest railway line to Barramunga, just short of Mount Sabine, from the 1890s to the 1910s would also prove unsuccessful.[10][11][12][13] In 1904, the Colac Herald reported that there was "not one yard of metalled or formed road" to Mount Sabine, and that residents had "to use the sleigh and pack saddle, and wade through fifteen miles of mud to get to a railway station".[14] The main road to Apollo Bay through Mount Sabine would be eventually metalled in the late 1920s, after which time a Melbourne newspaper described the road as "splendid".[15]

Mount Sabine had limited services besides the sawmilling and farming operations, with Barramunga becoming the village centre for the area instead. A boarding house providing "every comfort" with "first-class meals" was recommended by a Geelong Advertiser correspondent in 1886.[16] A public hall was reported to be under construction in 1922, but was never referred to in newspapers again.[17] A post office at the locality burned down in a bushfire in 1939.[18]

Mount Sabine was repeatedly affected by bushfires throughout its attempts at settlement: in 1886, one selector lost everything and many others had feared being burned to death; in 1908, two young children were severely burned, one of them fatally; in 1919, at least 100 houses were burned in the surrounding districts; and in 1939, a bushfire destroyed the Mount Sabine post office.[18][19][20][21][22][23]

The attempts to farm both Mount Sabine and the surrounding area ultimately failed, with the remoteness of the area hindering development. Many of the areas cleared by the early settlers have reverted to scrub or regenerated as forest.[9]

Sabine Falls, a popular tourist attraction, is located within Mount Sabine at the headwaters of Smythe Creek.[24] A further, more isolated group of more than seven waterfalls in the area was discovered in 2003.[25]

References

  1. "Mount Sabine (entry 102186)". VICNAMES. Government of Victoria. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
  2. "Mt Sabine VIC 3236". Google Maps. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
  3. Minchinton, Barbara (2011). "The trouble with Otway maps: Taking up a selection under the Land Act 1884". Provenance: The Journal of Public Record Office Victoria (10).
  4. "In the Cape Otway Ranges; From the coast to Mount Sabine". Camperdown Chronicle. 23 July 1889. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  5. "Town talk". Geelong Advertiser. 30 September 1874. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  6. "Geelong Advertiser". The Mount Sabine Sawmill. 16 September 1874. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  7. "Mount Sabine". The Colac Herald. 18 August 1885. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  8. "Big Timber Country: Barramunga". The Colac Herald. 25 July 1902. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  9. "Mount Sabine Land System". Department of Primary Industries. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  10. "Railway to Mount Sabine". The Argus. 27 September 1883. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  11. "Apollo Bay". The Colac Herald. 15 November 1901. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  12. "Proposed Railway". The Colac Herald. 26 July 1912. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
  13. "To Open Up Apollo Bay". Geelong Advertiser. 27 July 1912. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
  14. "Notes and events". The Colac Herald. 17 February 1904. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  15. "Road and touring notes". Table Talk. 21 July 1927. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  16. "Apollo Bay". Geelong Advertiser. 2 June 1886. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  17. "Items of interest". The Argus. 7 April 1922. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  18. "Two die fighting flames; Boy killed, brother badly burned". The Courier Mail. 16 January 1939. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  19. "Mount Sabine". The Colac Herald. 15 January 1886. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  20. "Two boys among the victims". The Horsham Times. 24 January 1908. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  21. "Serious bushfires; Destruction of homesteads; Several lives lost". The Brisbane Courier. 22 January 1908. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  22. "Otway Forest fire; Countryside swept; Township destroyed". The Argus. 18 February 1919. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  23. "Otway Forest fire; 100 homesteads burnt; Settlers in some straits". Daily Telegraph (Launceston). 22 February 1919. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  24. "Sabine Falls". Otway Ranges Environment Network. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
  25. Fyfe, Melissa (27 October 2003). "Trekkers find lost waterfalls". The Age. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
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