Trawool is a

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams over ...

and

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares ...

in central Victoria, Australia. The area lies on the middle reaches of the

Goulburn River The Goulburn River, a major inland perennial river of the Goulburn Broken catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the alpine, Northern Country/North Central, and Southern Riverina regions of the Australian state of Victo ...

and on the

Goulburn Valley Highway Goulburn Valley Highway is a highway located in Victoria, Australia. The section north of the Hume Freeway is part of the Melbourne to Brisbane National Highway (together with Hume Freeway) and is the main link between these two cities as well ...

, north of the state capital,

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

. Originally named ''Traawool'', the indigenous word for 'wild water', the district is dominated by agriculture and scenery.

History

First explored by

Hume and Hovell The Hume and Hovell expedition was a journey of exploration undertaken in eastern Australia. In 1824 the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane, commissioned Hamilton Hume and former Royal Navy Captain William Hovell to lead an exped ...

in 1824, it was later settled as a large

sheep station A sheep station is a large property (station, the equivalent of a ranch) in Australia or New Zealand, whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and/or meat. In Australia, sheep stations are usually in the south-east or sou ...

. Michael "Patrick" Burns (Born 1829,

Kilrush Kilrush () is a coastal town in County Clare, Ireland. It is also the name of a civil parish and an ecclesiastical parish in Roman Catholic Diocese of Killaloe. It is located near the mouth of the River Shannon in the south-west of the county. ...

County Clare County Clare ( ga, Contae an Chláir) is a county in Ireland, in the Southern Region and the province of Munster, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council is the local authority. The county had a population of 118,817 ...

) selected land (now known as Mt Pleasant) once a part of the Tallarook Run in 1867. He had come from Sydney in 1857 to work for Michael Hickey ( Born 1825

Cratloe Cratloe () is a village in County Clare, Ireland, situated between Limerick and Shannon in the mid-west of Ireland. It is possible that the name derives from ''Croit-shliabh'' meaning "hump-backed hill", referring to Woodcock Hill. The present ...

, County Clare) at Camp Hill, Tallarook. He and his family settled there on 20 March 1871. Burns lobbied for a

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compu ...

and donated the land. A portable school building was erected in 1885 and classes commenced the same year with a Helen McKay as Head Teacher. The Burns were actively involved with the Trawool community throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including the introduction of the railway, the

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

(from 1886 to its closure in 1972), and entertaining servicemen from the Seymour Army Camp. Trawool Valley Resort is listed in the National Trust Heritage Register recognised for its importance as a scenic, geological and cultural site, and for its great diversity of flora and fauna. By 2018 the resort had fallen into a degree of disrepair, but after an auction in 2018 new owners extensively refurbished the buildings, and it re-opened in late 2019 as The Trawool Estate, an accommodation, dining, and events venue. The Trawool Hotel was established at a river crossing site. A punt was used to ferry passengers across the river until a bridge was built. When a railway branch line from Tallarook to Yea was created in 1883 the Trawool railway station was built. After a period of growth in the 1880s, the settlement went into decline although a granite

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

was established in the area in the early 1890s. Australian and American troops were stationed at Trawool during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Electricity arrived in the district in 1945. However Trawool school closed in 1959, the post office relocated in 1972 and the last train travelled on the local railway line in 1978.

References

External links

* {{authority control Towns in Victoria (Australia) Towns in Lower Hume Shire of Mitchell Shire of Murrindindi