Narmbool Field Trip

Narmbool homestead.

Today we were lucky to have a day exploring the gardens and farmland of Narmbool. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may remember the Scotsburn bushfire of December 2015, which came much too close for comfort. If you follow that link, Narmbool is in the black area of the emergency map I included. In fact the fire burnt right up to the rock retaining wall you can see in the middle of the photo above. Some details of the damage and aftermath can be seen here: Narmbool garden restoration.

Reverse view from the top of those stairs:

An espaliered pear tree on the oldest part of the homestead complex:

I loved these grass trees in their ball-shaped pots:

We need more hellebores in our garden:

 That's a sculpture behind the hellebores if you are wondering.

A large ornamental lake below the garden:

The gardens were open last November for the first time since the fire. I had wanted to visit then, and can't remember why I didn't get there. But visiting today in a group of about 15 was fantastic. Apparently the open day attracted over 1000 people.

There is an interesting overview of the history of the property here: Narmbool, including an outline of the property overlaid on the Emergency map of the Scotsburn fire, and details of the link to Wilson Hall at Melbourne Uni.

The large dam (with boathouse):

Those bare branches are not deciduous trees. They are eucalypts damaged and even killed by the fire.

A forest of blackwoods growing up since the fire:

Fire causes the seeds to germinate. When we grow them for the TreeProject, we pour boiling water over them instead.

A cute baby lamb in a dog coat:

How we paid for our exclusive tour:

Seedlings to plant out!

When you have enough people working on it, planting 180 trees doesn't take long at all:

Now we just need some rain to settle them all in.

Then we took a tour of some other parts of the property. Here's a forest of eucalypts growing up around their (mainly) dead parent trees:

Wedge-tailed eagle nest:

Hard to photograph, as it is a long way up, and the sun was almost behind it. But it's the dark lump in the middle of the photo. It is about a metre deep and 1.5 metres across. The eagles have been using it for the last couple of years. We saw both the eagles soaring high above, so perhaps they have finished incubating their eggs and there are young birds up in that nest?

Last stop was the education centre, where we had afternoon tea while admiring the view across to our two local (inactive) volcanoes:

Mt Buninyong on the left, and in the distance Mt Warrenheip.

What a fantastic day out!