Heritage Walk along Plenty River

As part of Eltham & District Historical Society's regular series of heritage walks, the July walk will be along the Plenty River. It will include sites of historic interest along the river at Lower Plenty, Viewbank and Yallambie.

The walk will be on Saturday 4th July and will commence at 2pm on the western side of the old main road bridge in Old Lower Plenty Road, Viewbank (Melway Ref. 20 K9). Anyone wanting transport from Eltham should meet at the Eltham Local History Centre at 1.45pm. The walk will take about two hours. The distance will be between 3 and 4kilometres, going first downstream to the locality of the original ford, then upstream to view “Yallambie” homestead, both from the street and the river parkland at the rear.

Anne Paul and members of the Friends of the Lower Plenty River will also be attendance to add their insight. The walk is open to Society members and the public. There is no charge.

Ring Russell on 9439 9717 to advise if you are coming or for further information. The phone number for contact on the day is 0409 021 063.

Heritage Victoria twitters

The internet certainly opens up the way people can connect with the past. Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and more makes it enjoyable and fun and enables you to connect with people and information you are also interested in. There has been a lot of comments about Twitter recently. Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Heritage Victoria provides news from its website and any other news that comes to hand. Visit it here.

Do you twitter? Would you like Local History and Family History services at YPRL to communicate in this way?

Air Raid Shelters in Heidelberg

An interesting piece has been contributed to Wikinorthia this week about an air raid shelter built in the a Heidelberg back yard during World War 2.

Do you know of a similiar construction which existed in your area?

Watsonia Barracks

News today from The Herald Sun that the Army's School of Signals at Watsonia in Melbourne's northeast has been earmarked for sale.

A significant greenspace and landmark in the Watsonia community - Watsonia barracks was renamed Simpson barracks after Major General Colin Simpson in 1986. For some years the Barracks held annual Open Days for the community, with static displays, mock battles and parachute drops. Visit the Royal Australian Corps of Signals to learn more about the School of Signals, Watsonia and its history.

If this land is sold and developed, it will certainly change the face of this north west corner of Banyule.

Photo: 1982, Diamond Valley Local History Digitisation Project, Yarra Plenty Regional Library.