Maldon - Mount Tarrengower Lookout Tower
Panoramic views of the surrounding region are best seen from the peak of Mount Tarrengower where there is a poppet-head lookout tower.
Mount Tarrengower rises to a height of 570 metres a few kilometres west of Maldon, and was the centre of gold diggings in the area during the 1850s.
The drive to the summit is about 3 km from the centre of Maldon. Drive along High Street, turn left after the brown sign into Franklin Street to begin the drive up the mountain.
As you make the ascent up the mountain you will observe the Butts Reserve - a clear space to the right and left of the road, with amenities on the left and stunning rock formation on the right.
The annual Hill Climb is held on the mountain. Beginning at Butts Reserve and continuing up and down the mountain, it is one of the oldest surviving Hill Climbs in Australia and the longest - being 1.5km long. The first climb was held in 1928 and up until 1956 was organised by the RACV. It fell into decline and was revived in 1964-1965 by the Vintage Sports Car Club of Australia. These two climbs were run on the new sealed road to the summit alongside the original rough track, some of which can still be seen today. It lapsed again until 1974 until the same club organised another round of the Victoria Hill Climb Championship.
Since 1974 the climb has been an annual event catering for vintage, historic, sports and racing car enthusiasts. Motor cycles were reintroduced in 2001. More detailed information can be obtained from the Vintage Sports Car Club of Vic and the Bendigo Car Club Inc.
The views as you continue your ascent are clear and extensive. There are stopping points along the way which can provide a view all the way to the Grampians.
At the top of the climb you will find ample place to park and tables and chairs are available for a picnic or a quiet sit. The 360 degree view from the ground is impressive, but the view from the tower is panoramic and stunning.
The Mount, The Lookout, and The Tower
By the end of the 1920s gold mining in Maldon had almost ceased and the town was in decline. In 1923 the Advance Maldon Association, seeking an attraction to bring visitors to the town, conceived the idea of erecting a lookout tower.
A suitable tower was identified in Bendigo. This was dismantled and its poppet legs brought to Maldon by rail in 80ft (24m) lengths. These sections were hauled up the mountain on a timber jinker drawn by a large team of horses. A track had to be cut from the Butts to the summit with a gradient that the horses could climb - the original rough track.
The top level of the tower is now used for fire spotting, but the lower levels are open to the public. From these levels neighbouring peaks are visible, including Mt. Alexander near Harcourt, Mt Korong near Wedderburn, Mt Franklin near Daylesford, Mt Beckwith near Clunes, Pyramid Hill, Mt Buninyong south of Ballarat, and Mt Macedon.
To the west in the middle distance Cairn Curran Reservoir can be seen, a major irrigation and water storage facility on the Loddon River, and used in less dry times for fishing, boating and water skiing.
Beyond that can be seen the white mounds of spoil from the deep lead mines that worked deposits of alluvial gold in buried riverbeds. Lights of far off townships are visible at night.
MORNING THOUGHTS by Daisy Cooper
Rising from a rugged base
Grand and bold and towering high
The mountain of our native place
Stands out against the azure sky
The zephyrs of a gentle morn
Steal through the wooded clefts and rocks
And as we talk the sounds are borne
From hill to vale where echoes mock
The rising sun, whose joyous beams
Scatter the darkness of the night
Tips all the hills and valleys seem
To sing a song of glad delight
The summit then we reach at last
And scan the landscapes all around
Dwelling on memories of the past
When natives free roamed o'er the ground
Yes, on this mount in days gone by
The chieftains of a fading race
Have gleaned the news of dangers nigh
And made these rocks a hiding place
And as we gaze, a dreamy sense
Of all the beauties that we see
Makes us pause and wonder whence
The Author of these works can be
Oh, Nature how divinely sweet
Are all thy works enriched by man
For O'er thee broods a spirit deep
And through they whole a God-like plan.
Published in The Tarrangower Times December, 1884.
Some children believe the Easter Bunny lives there..... on the Mount.
Each year, during the Maldon Easter Fair, the tower is illuminated. Prior to electricity being available it was lit up with loo makeshift lanterns, using stone ginger beer bottles, hemp wicks and kerosene, attached by fencing wire. The number that remained alight depended on the prevailing winds. The lanterns were hidden in a disused mine shaft during the year to save carrying them up and down the mount. The Fire Brigade had to be called one year when one of the lanterns set the tower alight.
Now the strings of light globes can be seen from distances up to 50kms away. The tower 'alight' is still a delight to all at Easter.
About The Nuggetty Ranges
Maldon is enclosed on two sides with Mt Tarrangower to the west and the Nuggetty Ranges to the north. Both areas are public land and are covered by open eucalypt forest with displays of wildflowers in spring. A number of roads and walking tracks run from the town up into the forest.
Information Signs at the Bottom of the Tower
The information signs display the following text:
THE LOOKOUT - a mining relic... Easter Bunny's house
Since Maldon's gold mines began petering out before the First World War residents have got together and found ways of attracting visitors and keeping the town prosperous. Today Maldon boasts an impressive range of community festivals and events including the annual Easter Fair, agricultural show, Folk Festival and vintage car and motorcycle hill climb.
One of the most enduring legacies of Maldon's community effort is this poppet-head lookout which you can climb for 360 degree views over Maldon and central Victoria.
On 26th January 1924, the Premier of Victoria, the Hon. H.S.W. Lawson (a Castlemaine man) officially opened the tower to the public.
The tower was decorated with wine bottle kerosene lamps for Christmas Eve, 1926. The following year it became the symbol of Maldon's Easter Fair, one of Australia's oldest community events, dating back to 1877. Each Easter, the Mt Tarrengower tower is illuminated at night - originally by lanterns, now by electric globes - and can be seen for many kilometres around.
Over the years, generations of local children have grown up believing that the illuminated tower is Easter Bunny's house.
The tower is the property of Mount Alexander Shire Council and, from 1950, gained a second use as a fire spotting tower. The first fire spotter to work up the tower was Oliver Ralph whom a local newspaper report describes as having 'eyes like a hawk'.
In 1923 the Advance Maldon Association purchased the poppet-head of the Comet Mine (Bendigo) from 'the Quartz King' George Lansell for 87 pounds and brought it by rail to Maldon. A road was constructed up the mountain and the tower's four legs and various bits of bracing were dragged up to the summit by horse teams and re-erected at the highest point.
The rivetted steel legs of the tower are 26 metres high. Two levels are accessible to the public.
The tower, a rare gold mining relic, is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.
Mt TARRENGOWER - a silent witness
On 26th September 1836, Major Thomas Mitchell passed south of Mt Tarrengower on his return to Sydney after exploring the country he called 'Australia Felix'. He took bearings of the mountain to assist in making a map of the area.
The first European settlers to arrive in the Maldon area were pastoralists who grazed sheep and cattle. Land was taken up in 1839 by Lachlan MacKinnon, who called his run 'Tarringower'. At the same time a licence was issued for the adjacent run 'Cairn Curran' on which the town of Maldon is now situated. That property soon was held by the Bryant family and the area around Maldon became known as Bryants Ranges.
In December 1853, rich gold was found in the gullies about Bryants Ranges.
Charles Thatcher, a famous goldfields minstrel of the times, wrote a ballad called 'Rush Away', its chorus commencing 'Rush, my jolly pals, rush away, To Bryants Ranges, rush away'.
Mount Tarrengower is roughly, give or take a few kilometres, the centre of Victoria. Near the table to the east of the tower is a survey point marker, with another directly beneath the centre of the tower. These survey points are still used by surveyors today in identifying other feature locations in the region.
Tarrengower is thought to be an Aboriginal word meaning 'big rough hill'. The birth of the mountain belongs to a volcanic period in the geological history of central Victoria. It is made from hornsfels, a metamorphic rock, which has been heated and hardened by volcanic action.
The road up the mountain was constructed so that the tower could be dragged up the hill by horses. It was first used for a hill climb for motor cars in 1928. Participating makes of cars in 1928 were Lancia, Bugatti, Graham-Paige, Morris, Austin, De Soto, Chrysler, Riley and Ford. The race has been an annual event ever since. Today it is a 'classics only' event held each October. Vintage motorcycles are also a feature of the Mount Tarrengower Hill Climb, the oldest motor sport event in Australia.
THE GOLDFIELDS - the land beneath our feet
The land around you is ancient. About 480 million years ago, it was all under the sea. Then a couple of tectonic plates collided deep underground, squeezing everything like a vice. The sea bed was forced upwards and the sea drained away. The great mass of the sea bed, layers of sand and mud, folded and welded together into stone that now forms the solid foundations of central Victoria.
Erosion and volcanic activity have altered the shape of the old sea bed. From the tower you can now see two quite distinctive landforms. To the south lie grassy plains: the result of volcanic eruptions and lava flows. To the east, north and west is the old sea bed, now rolling hills of sandstone - box and ironbark forest country.
From the tower can be seen many landmarks, each with its own geological and human stories. Not far away, to the south-east, is Mount Franklin, an extinct volcano. Its Aboriginal name is Lalgambook. Daylesford lies nearby.
The extensive range of Mount Alexander, to the east, is formed from Granite. Granite is made from volcanic material which cooled and hardened deep below the earth's surface. The mountain's aboriginal name is Leanganook. At the foot of the mountain lies Castlemaine and Harcourt, and at its northern end Ravenswood and Bendigo.
This scenery is linked to an event of mythical proportions - the Victorian gold rush. It was 1851, when gold nuggets and gold in quartz rock were discovered under the roots of the trees around Mount Alexander. From the goldfields of Castlemaine, Maldon and Bendigo over 30 million ounces of gold has been won - an amount of gold significant in world terms. About a quarter of this total was dug up during the gold rush of the 1850s.
The land bears the imprint of many cultures. The region's founding layer was put in place by the Aboriginal people over tens of thousands of years. The Jaara Jaara or Dja Dja Wurrung speaking people are this land's first people. Jaara Elder, Brien Nelson, hopes 'that people visiting Mt Tarrengower will imagine that on this land once walked men, women and children who carried everything they needed for survival - tools, ceremonial implements and possum skin cloaks'.
FIRE SPOTTING - over sixty years of vigilance
There is a fire lookout box on the top level of the tower. It is manned for approximately 125 days over the summer months. The person (or fire spotter) on duty scans the landscape for smoke and reports any signs to the fire authorities (currently the Department of Sustainability & Environment, Parks Victoria and the CFA) who in turn send out trucks and firefighters to put out the flames.
It was the establishment of the Victorian Forests Commission in 1919 that led to the State Government's first serious approach to fire protection in Victoria. Hitherto, fire control as it is now understood was almost non-existent. Some patrol work and fire fighting was attempted by individual officers, but lack of funds and co-ordination left the few district officers without men or means.
From 1919, a fire protection plan for the State's forests took shape as the Forests Commission took a more scientific approach towards the problem. The first fire-spotting towers were constructed in 1924. During the fire season of 1927-28 observations were recorded at several fire-spotting towers for the purpose of matching fire occurrences with weather conditions. The number of towers dramatically increased, from 15 to 37, after bad bushfires in 1929.
The Forests Commission also sought to improve efficiency by the introduction of new tools (such as spray pumps), the construction of ams and the provision of water tanks at strategic locations, and better fire protection measures such as fire breaks and tracks.
Pin-pointing the location of a fire is done by triangulation, using the compass bearings of the smoke from the fire taken from two or three surrounding towers - One Tree Hill (Bendigo), Fryers Ridge (Elphinstone) and Mt Franklin (Daylesford). Sight-lines on the compass bearings are crossed, thereby accurately positioning the fire.
The viewing distance from this tower is up to 100 km in all directions, except northwards to Bendigo and Mt Alexander where it is about 30 km. Most fire spotters become long-time occupants of the towers. In its first sixty years, this tower has been manned by only five different spotters:
Oliver Ralph - 1950s
Frank Webster - 1960s
Lindsay Brown - 1970s
Ken Weatherall - 1980 - 1994
Geoff Exon - 1995
Peter Skilbeck - 1996 - present
Review:
The tower has three levels with the highest level being closed off and used as a fire lookout while the lower two levels are open to the public. The first level is easy to get up the stairs but the stairs to the second level are steeper and narrower and more scary (especially for younger kids).
On the first level there is a direction board showing the direction and distance to a range of places including Mt Alexander, Mt Macedon and Mt Franklin. There are great views from the tower.
At the bottom of the tower are four information signs, unshaded table and seats.
Lisle's Reef Walk begins at the car park and takes about an hour. It has interpretive signs and mining relics.
Photos:
Location
Mount Tarrengower Road, Maldon 3463 Map
Web Links
→ Mt Tarrengower Historic Hill Climb on Facebook
