Culture Corner

CULTURE CORNER

The Silver Brumby homestead lost to the fires

When author KAREN VIGGERS was a child, her inspiration was Elyne Mitchell, owner of the iconic Towong Homestead in Victoria, and author of the Silver Brumby series. Karen gives us a unique look at a place that is gone forever.

We live in challenging times. The fires that have razed large parts of NSW and Victoria have touched everyone’s lives.

We’ve seen fires in this country before, but nothing like this. The losses are massive. Landscapes, properties, houses, livestock, horses, wildlife, human life. Every day has brought more devastating news. More country burned. Communities under threat. Animals lost. One friend’s horses were caught in the blaze and died. Another friend’s horses miraculously dodged the fire and somehow survived. The random hand of fate prevails. One house is destroyed. Another, nearby, remains standing.

Among many sad stories, I learned that Elyne Mitchell’s beautiful homestead at Towong Hill near Corryong in Victoria was destroyed by fire. Like many horsey people, I had a strong childhood connection to the Silver Brumby series. I grew up in the digital dark ages of the 1970s before the internet and mobile phones. Back then, books were the main way of engaging with the world, and that’s how I explored my passion for horses.

I was eight when I first visited the public library and discovered Elyne Mitchell’s books. I read the first line of Silver Brumbies of the South, about horses, nature and wilderness, and I was in. Thus began an important relationship that has had a major impact on my life. Elyne Mitchell and her Silver Brumby books inspired me to become a writer. It was a journey that would take many years, but my future had its genesis in her books.

A horse-mad girl, I grew up on my family’s small farm in the Dandenong Ranges, hanging out with cows and dogs, and dreaming about horses. On wet days, I read and reread the Silver Brumby books, and, when the rain cleared, I ran around the paddocks pretending to be Thowra

Towong Hill Station before and after the fire.

or Baringa, guarding a herd of mares or fighting an intruding wild stallion.

My mother suggested I write to Elyne Mitchell, so I sat down with an Aerogram and composed my first letter on the thin blue paper. The letter made its way to a publisher in London, who mailed it back to Australia where it was delivered to Towong Hill Station near Corryong, where Elyne lived on her beautiful property overlooking the western faces of the Snowy Mountains.

We corresponded for several years. I wrote to Elyne about my first pony, King, whose wild ways I was lucky to survive. She wrote to me about her dogs, the Angus cattle that ran on her property, and the views of the mountains that were such a large part of her life.

Years later, when I was studying to become a veterinarian, I decided to visit a friend working in veterinary practice in Corryong. I wrote to Elyne again, asking if I could meet her, and I was delighted when she invited me to afternoon tea.

The drive from Corryong to Towong wound among rolling green hills and water courses dotted with willows. I followed the driveway to the large stately house on the hill. A Border Collie raced out to greet me. Then Elyne appeared from the house: a thin, craggy woman with a crooked leg, an uneven gait, and skin as weathered as the mountains. She smiled as she gripped my hand, and I knew we were kindred spirits: both lovers of horses and the written word. Over scones and tea, in the cool shadows of the kitchen, we talked about writing and the mountains and, later, swam in the billabong near the house. to life. The landscape and its animals. Not just the wild Brumbies, but also the native animals. The kangaroos. The yellow-tailed black cockatoos that flew over, warning of storms. The granite tors high up on the Ramshead Range. The twisted snowgums. Through her writing, I knew the high country long before I ever saw it. I loved the maps in the front of her books, and I learned the names of all the landscape features, visiting these places in my mind.

Now, my family has a share in a small lodge at Guthega and we visit the mountains regularly. Thanks to Elyne, this country is important to us too.

It’s tragic that Elyne’s property recently burned and her grand homestead has been destroyed. I’m sure she would be sad to see what has happened to the country she loved so much.

She wrote: ‘This is the country that built my heart’. If she was alive, she would tell everyone to rebuild their lives – and the landscape.

Just after the fires, I spoke to Elyne’s daughter, Honor, who has become my friend in recent years. She said her parents would be fighting for the land from their graves, if they could. And she hopes people can use Elyne’s love of the country as a beacon of hope.