Amy raffe | bridget ince | Jessica else
Sugarloaf Reservoir
I am used to the western landscape—flat dry ground. The east is different—it holds lush uniform paddocks.
inding through valleys of lifting fog and frost-covered grass, I think about the locals' old name for this place: ‘Stringybark Forest.’ Surveying the fibrous tendons of the trees that surround me, the name begins to make sense. The outer shells have been shed and dangle off, like pieces of string cheese. There are so many of them they seem to go on forever, surrounding me and cutting me off from the outside world.
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It’s cold outside, but in summer, this place tells a different story. ‘Wuneondaboul’ was another name given to this area by the Indigenous people.
The slopes my car has climbed to get here lie in stark contrast to Sugarloaf Reservoir—its level terrain leaves the horizon clearly illuminated. Rolling towards the entrance, I am met with grand concrete gates that warn me of a 5pm lockout, foreshadowing the peculiarity of what’s before me. I have to fight the urge to get out the car and touch them—their smoothness is compelling.
They beckon my entry into another realm.
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My breath catches in my chest as the reservoir comes into view. The dazzling blue water is perfectly still, reflecting the cloudless sky above. Compared to the busy streets I fought to get here, it feels eerie and silent.
Each step I take resonates as a sensation of trespassing on private property. There is a strangeness to the reservoir’s beauty and I can’t help but think this strangeness lies within the fact Sugarloaf is a man-made reserve. I feel the potential loss of what was here before and consequently, guilt for admiring what is too perfect.
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A
t a glance it’s hard to believe that just a half-century ago this vast body of water did not exist. The Christmas Hills area of untouched bushland was selected and developed with the aim of providing drinking water to Melbourne’s central, eastern and inner-western suburbs. Since its completion in 1981, the body of water has grown from being a simple dam to a community hub for sailors, fisherman and families alike.
As I lean against the railing of this very dam, 50 years later, trying to capture the splendour of the view with my camera, a man appears beside me. With his high-visibility vest and broad Australian accent he says, ‘g’day’. I tell him how wonderful the reservoir is. His response surprises me.
‘Only 50% capacity at the moment. Lowest it will get, should pick up again soon.’ I realise that for a moment I had forgotten the true purpose of Sugarloaf—to provide humankind’s most valuable resource.
This makes me curious. If the reservoir is so important to our own ecosystem, does that justify its position within ‘nature’?
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The reservoir is surrounded by an 18km walking track. I’ve never attempted a walk this long before, and as my feet crunch against the gravel of the car park, I ponder what lies ahead, beyond the edges of the water. An orange triangle plasted to an aged tree signals the direction of the hike, and I follow the path.
Before I reach a conclusion, it’s important to think about what ‘nature’ actually means. For most people, nature is essentially, not the city. Something not developed by man. Despite not being its creator, nothing seems to stop us from trying to conquer and manipulate our natural world to meet society’s ever-growing needs.
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ollowing the trail, I look to my right and laugh nervously as three kangaroos perch in the grass, boxing into thin air. Kangaroos occupy the grasslands that surround Sugarloaf, yet there was a time when they didn’t. This land belongs to the Wurundjeri people who would spend their summers on the river and the winter in the hills for warmth. One summer upon returning to their water source, they were greeted not by kangaroos, but sheep.
D
uring my research of this area, I found that there is little written about Sugarloaf prior to European settlement. When I sat down with local historian and 23-time author Mick Woiwod, he told me he could prove, down to the day, when the Aboriginal people of Christmas Hills and the neighbouring Kangaroo Ground were wiped out. Woiwood tells me that despite the geography being well-documented, nothing is written about the indigenous people of these regions. Part of the reason is that no one from the area is alive today. Their oral histories have been lost in the wind forever.
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My skin crawls as I look back out across the water—all that remains of these people is this land and most of it has been tainted by modern engineering. Guilt bites at me, making me walk with care, conscious not to harm the ground beneath my feet any further. A natural ecosystem was disrupted and replaced with a manufactured world during the implementation of the Sugarloaf Project.
The track in front of me bends, my path is broken by a gravel road cutting through the trees. The road slopes down towards the dry water’s edge, leading to a large concrete tower engulfed by a wire fence. A sign attached to the rusting metal screams ‘Authorized Vehicles Only’. In this moment, my illusion of nature is broken, the human footprint too large to ignore.
I’ve been here for an hour and still the water is yet to struggle against the walls that hold it. This trick makes me question if the blue plain ahead of me is really water at all—it’s hardly acting like it. I think back to a comment made by environmental geographer D.r Melissa Neave when I met with her some time ago. She noted that Sugarloaf is ‘merely like a tank’—nothing but a big water storage unit. This reminds me of the sign I passed at the beginning of the hike which explained that Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Redfin and European Carp could be found within the water for those after a nice fishing spot. I laugh. Someone introduced these fish to the dam, like goldfish in a primary school fish tank.
A debate lies in whether this change was positive or negative, and when considering the forgotten tales of the land’s original occupants, it’s hard to view it in a good light.
Interview soundbite with
Dr. Melissa Neave
‘I would describe it as a human system, a human construct’ she answered finally, ‘but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have natural value in that landscape.’
With a specific interest in water resources, Dr. Neave is able to look past the beauty of the reservoir. She sees what it is from a purely environmental perspective. When I asked her ‘do you consider Sugarloaf to be part of nature?’ she hesitated.
Of course, the answer is not a simple yes or no.
About an hour into my walk I become overwhelmingly disoriented. I lose sight of the water as my view is obscured by thick foliage. The path becomes dark and cold with the disappearance of the sun behind the trees. My feet hitting the path is the only sound I hear.
I am completely isolated.
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A bird call momentarily rips through the silence and I jump. Its call is loud and long, like a siren signalling an evacuation. It frightens me. There is a delicate stream flowing to my right, perhaps the remnants of what used to be. Suddenly the difference between the reservoir and the natural stream is clear. The colour of the water is the most obvious giveaway. The brown, murky stream makes it hard to see the reservoir’s glistening blue pool as organic.
Finally, I come out into a very large, very green, very lush clearing.
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I can’t help but do a little Julie Andrews move and spin as I sing ‘The Sound of Music’.
The clearing makes me feel as though I have stepped into a completely different world, the vastness contrasting the thick trees I walked within only moments ago.
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o longer on a defined path, I will myself forward, hoping that the direction will soon become clear. I find myself thankful for the fluro orange bollards illuminating the way like an airport runway despite how out of place they are. The water has been hidden for some time, and as a helicopter flies overhead, I consider waving for help, hoping, lazily, for an end to this journey. I laughed before at news of a man getting lost out here, but as I move forward I see it is easy to do.
Years before, this land had been compulsorily acquired by the government from farmers. Because the soil was poor, so too were the farmers. Despite protesting that the land was their heartland and should not be taken away—ironic given that they had done the same to the Indigenous people decades before—they knew they weren’t strong enough to take on the government.
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Later, with a change in cabinet, new premier Rupert Hammer commissioned a survey in response to the farmer’s protest. It determined another dam would cause too great a social and environmental disruption to the land. Sugarloaf was already underway at this stage, but protesters shared the success of stopping another dam being built. I whisper to the great gum trees circling me.
I am sorry. We are too late.
t is becoming increasingly difficult to view the area as ‘natural’. I wish for natural beauty, because I am beginning to find ‘natural’ synonymous with zero human destruction.
When I finally stumble across a path, it looks as though someone has recently been through with a lawn mower to clear the stray weeds and long grass.
Part of Sugarloaf’s illusion also lies in the fact that there is so little I can find out about its life before European settlement. ‘Without their land they’re a nothing-people’ Mick tells me of the reservoir’s true occupants. When European conveyors asked the Aboriginals what the Sugarloaf area was called, they murmured ‘Niliami’.
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If there is no wind, is it even sailing?
The path cuts through the trees and I once again find myself walking along the water's edge, relief washing over me. A small tin building is perched close by, and if it weren’t for the dozens of sailing boats parked alongside it I may have completely missed the Sugarloaf Sailing Club. I look beyond the boats to the water. It looks just like a painting. I can’t help but wonder who chooses to sail on a waterbody so perfect, so uneventful.
I cast my mind back to something Dr Neave said, about how the creation of a place such as Sugarloaf has the ‘potential to improve people’s interactions with landscapes.’ The Sailing Club is not the only recreational activity available at Sugarloaf, with the introduction of fish making it an exciting fishing spot, and many picnic facilities ready for picnic-goers on a warm day. This beautiful waterbody and the recreational activities built around it have created a door. A way into a landscape. How can we view this, natural or not, as a negative thing?
Sounds of the Sugarloaf Reservoir
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s I round another bend, I enter what could have been a new world. This one is a field of small green shrubs. They remind me of plants from a Lego set, artificially placed to create a pretty picture.
Finally, as I follow a tall wire fence, I meet up with the road and celebrate being close to the end of my journey. This overwhelming feeling gives me a sharp energy boost.
And then, I’m there. I’m hot. I’m tired. I’m sore. But I’ve made it.
I look back across the landscape and see the outline of the hill this place is named after, the odd shape that vaguely resembles a loaf of sugar.
I crawl to a nearby park bench and try to understand the magnitude of my achievement. I begin to unpack what I’ve learned from my trek. Having set out to discover whether Sugarloaf Reservoir, a man-made construction, could be considered nature, I feel even further from an answer than when I started.
A sentence that Jane Ashton, Councillor for the Sugarloaf Ward on the Nillumbik Council, wrote rings in my head as I take in my surroundings
‘...everything has
been touched by man’
Instead of making distinctions between ‘man-made’ and ‘natural’, should we instead be measuring it through the various levels of which it has been influenced by man, by the positive or negative influence man has had?
Dr Neave stated ‘It’s [Sugarloaf Reservoir] providing resources and habitat different to the original habitat, but still habitat that can have value.’ While man disrupted a piece of nature in its own right to create a water source, this water source is now home to a brand new, significant ecosystem.
We cannot go back and change the past, but we can listen to the story Sugarloaf tells and cherish the beauty of it now, however corrupted.
