From Banksia Street to Burke Road, Melbourne Parks has laid the Main Yarra Trail on the Heidelberg side of the river. On the Bulleen side, there is another walking track also covering the whole distance, this track continues from Banksia Park under the bridge where it joins another entrance from Banksia Street. Here the path is on Melbourne Parks and Waterways land, the track winds under trees up small hills and down to timber bridges and walkways across old swampy branches of the river. Another entrance comes from Kim Close before we cross the land that used to be the Bulleen Drive-In. Last century in the 1830s Wood's sheep grazed on these river flats.
The track follows the river in a wide curve and passes the entrance to another track around the Bolin Billabong. Along this section we could be out in the country miles, from Melbourne. Cattle graze in paddocks and in the summer bales of hay lie in the fields. Behind the Veneto Club, Melbourne Parks own a strip alongside the river, then the path enters Bullen Park that is controlled by the Council. Here the path no longer passes through bushland but crosses an open sports ground.
Past the sports field in Bulleen Park, there is a choice of two ways, the gravel path goes around the end of a small billabong, then alongside the archery ground. The other, a bush track, travels into a curve of the Yarra, winding under trees up and over hills between the billabong and the river. Fifty years ago, in the days when people thought a swamp should be drained and a hollow filled in, this became a local rubbish dump. In the 1970s, with a more enlightened council, the rubbish was removed and the billabong allowed to return to its original state and be the home for the many small creatures that live in wet lands.
On the grasslands, where 150 years ago Duncan's cows grazed, the track runs along the edge of the Camberwell Public Golf Course under the trees on the bank of the river, then, at Koonung Creek over a bridge connecting both sides of the golf links: Beyond the links the track cut through rough grass reaching a concrete bicycle path that leads to the Main Yarra Trail. The trail crosses the Yarra on a new foot bridge rising in a graceful arch over the Yarra. Across the river is a car park in The Boulevard at Ivanhoe. This is one place where continuous paths have been laid on both sides of the river. From the car park at Heidelberg to the car park at Ivanhoe it is a three and a half kilometre walk on the Main Yarra Trail. On the more interesting track on the Bulleen side it is five kilometres.
The track has traversed an area with a history that goes back thousands of years. Along the Bulleen side of the Yarra, lagoons, billabongs and river branches teemed with wildlife: fish and eels swam in the water while the air was alive with water birds and kangaroos grazed on the slopes above the river. Aborigines came here in hot weather, for there was an ample supply of food and the spreading red gums gave shelter for camping. With such a supply of food this was one of the few places tribes could meet for corroborees. The aborigines spent their summers here until 1842 and the last encampment of aborigines at Bolin took place in 1852.
There were many lagoons along this section of the Yarra and often during wet seasons the course of the river was hard to define. The largest lagoon, called Bolin, became known as Lake Bulleen by white men. It was an expansion of the Yarra River, lying on low ground about a mile above the junction of Koonung Creek and covered an area of fifty to sixty acres depending on the season.
In 1837, John Woods settled in the area and grazed his sheep on the rich pasture of the river flats. Two years later he sold his grazing lease to Robert Laidlaw and John Kerr. Kerr left shortly after but Laidlaw remained becoming the first permanent settler in Bulleen. During the 1840s, a community developed alongside the river. The farmers grew wheat and barley while Alexander Duncan made butter and cheese from his dairy faun. Most of the settlers were Presbyterians who had come from Scotland, they held a church service in Duncan's barn in 1842. The congregation sat on planks laid across barley sacks and used a cheese churn as an altar. Mrs. Duncan taught the children in her wattle and daub hut. They were proud to live in Bulleen.
Laidlaw made a large profit from growing potatoes during the gold rushes and in 1865 built a two story mansion, ‘Spring Bank', on Bulleen Road. The soil of the river flats was rich and with water from the river and lagoons the farms were the most successful in Melbourne but floods often ruined crops, so the farmers changed to dairying and cattle. In 1925 J. V. Wood purchased Springbank and changed the name of his dairy stud ‘Clarendon Eyre’.
In the first decades after the 39 - 45 war, few people thought of the Yarra as a place for recreation or bushland walks, they were busy building a family life. Councillors looked on the Bulleen flats as a place for a rubbish dump. In the 1970s and 80s, public attitudes and life styles changed, then the council cleaned out the gullies and raised and levelled this land for a sporting area. Bulleen Park, set in a broad curve of the Yarra, catered for football, cricket, hockey, model aeroplane flying and archery. A walking track connected with the tracks set out by Melbourne Parks and Waterways.
The most attractive part of the river flats is the Bolin Billabong. The area is public land and although there is at present no gate through the fence it can be entered from Bulleen Road below "Clarendon Ayre". A walking path is cleared through the grass right around the lagoon. The billabong is not a flowing stream it is a calm peaceful stretch of water. Eucalypts curve out over the lagoon throwing shadows on the surface and the wind blows gentle ripples across the water, while often groups of ducks silently paddle past. On any fine day, at a bend where the water is deep near the road, fishermen sit patiently on the bank their lines trailing in the water.
Around the billabong an aboriginal food garden is being prepared. The work is being carried out by two apprentice gardeners who are aborigines. Food zones are planted in areas. In a wet patch on the north paddock, carex, lomandra longifolia and coprosma are planted. There is a fruit area with native raspberry, appleberry and kangaroo apple. In the eucalypt section manna gum and river red gums are planted; these provided bark for shields and other purposes. There is a range of wattles. Black wattle was used for sticky resin and blackwood for implements. Later tuberous plants such as lilies and orchards will be planted. At the top end a car park will be laid out with a walk through an interpretive garden. Around the billabong the range of species is to be increased with plantings such as native grasses.
Source: Irvine Green writing in 1995 03 DTHS Newsletter
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