The Railway Station ‘Hurstbridge,” shouted the porter, as the electric mail train was brought to a standstill at 9.15 a.m.
Then three men entered the guards van and gathered mailbags, while a few passengers took seats in the motor buses outside the station.
A basket was placed on the platform, and no one gave it much attention but a fox terrier dog, for he barked and danced all around it. Then a porter released a catch and out flew a number of pigeons, and all ascended to get their bearings for a flight home.
Amongst the passengers was a visitor, who asked the way to the hotel. He was informed by a mailman that the nearest approach to an hotel was Dorset House, which only had a wine license.
“Oh,” he said in surprise, “and yet it is on the map as a tourist spot, surrounded by orchards and hills, and in the wattle season one of the pictures title sights of the State.”
A mailman ventured the remark that he was going to Kinglake, the coming “Mount Buffalo” of Victoria, and he would pass three hotels enroute.
A wag chaffed the mailmen about the “transcontinental” mails to Arthur’s Creek and the various villages on the way to Kinglake, but the man at the wheel of the motor bus said
that as soon as Mr. Clapp could find time to give a little “boost” to Kinglake it would come into its own.
The visitor walked around the township, eyeing things as he went and then, from the balcony of Dorset House he took in a survey of some picturesque country, including the
In reply to a question by a resident as to what he thought of the place after a few days’
rambling about, he said he did not wish to be critical, but he could not understand the gradients of the paths, the lack of paint about the public hall and many buildings, no electric light when it is so handy at the Cool Stores, to say nothing of there being no water supply, except when the clouds opened.
He inquired about the price of land, train fares, etc., and the possibilities of new families
settling here.
What council are you under? Where is the shire town? Have you a progress society?
Does anybody care?
When he was told that there was no shire town, and that the councillors met at Kangaroo
Ground, he replied:
“No wonder! My father used to speak of that place 50 years ago, and I understand, from school records, that there is less population than there was in those days.”
When asked what his business was, he was somewhat reticent, beyond the fact that there were many possibilities for the place if it were made more attractive.
Many places, he maid, with nothing like the beauty of Hurstbridge, had gone ahead through the energy of councillors and public citizens.
He said that if the people had enough grit to get such a good train service they should be able to make it worth while for more people to live in it.
Is anybody listening?
1928 ‘HURSTBRIDGE’, Advertiser (Hurstbridge, Vic. : 1922 – 1939), 30 March, p. 1. (AFTERNOON.), viewed 24 Mar 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article57756931
