Imagine a pocket of land that just completely
ignores the rules of nature and history. Yeah,
totally plays by its own rule. Right. Like we're
talking about a mountain range that somehow operates
like a secluded island, an ancient forest that
quietly hid an entire human civilization from
colonial record keepers. And a geological fortress
that just magically repels the kind of catastrophic
megafires that routinely devastate the surrounding
continent. I mean, it sounds like a setting from
a fantasy novel, right? It really does. But this
is a very real place. When you look at the topography
of Victoria, Australia, you expect the landscape
to make a certain kind of sense. You expect mountain
ranges to be these massive, unbroken chains.
Like giant walls of rock that dictate the weather,
act as inescapable barriers, all that. Exactly.
But today we are bringing you a deep dive into
the Strath bogey ranges Yes, which is a region
that just shatters all of those expectations
It really does and for this deep dive We're pulling
from a really detailed a Wikipedia article covering
the geography the history and the ecology of
this incredibly specific area and the kicker
for you listening This place is sitting just
150 kilometers northeast of Melbourne, which
is what? Barely a couple of hours drive from
a major global metropolis. Yeah, exactly. You
would naturally assume an area that close to
a capital city would be completely integrated,
fully mapped out, tamed by modern infrastructure.
You'd think so, yeah. But our mission today is
to explore how this geographically isolated pocket
has managed to quietly play by its own rules
for millennia. We are going to look at how it
shaped a completely unique ecology, how the physical
landscape itself corrects colonial history, and
how its violent geological past is actively protecting
it today. So, okay, let's unpack this. Let's
do it. To understand any of the strange phenomena
happening in the Strathboegies, you first have
to understand the ground you're standing on.
Technically, this region is a part of the Great
Dividing Range, that massive continental mountain
chain we were just talking about. But the Strathbogies
are fundamentally different because of their
bedrock. Okay, the bedrock. Yeah. The foundation
of this entire story is Devonian rock. Specifically,
a formation known as Strathbogie granodierite.
Okay, I have to say, Strathbogie granodierite
sounds like something a supervillain uses to
build a laser. It does. It really does sound
like comic book science. Right. But what are
we actually looking at when we talk about this
specific type of rock? Well, granodierite is
a type of coarse -grained rock. It forms deep
underground when magma cools very, very slowly.
It's incredibly hard, dense, and uncompromising.
But it's how that rock was brought to the surface
that makes this region so fascinating. The southern
part of the range is this uplifted granite plateau.
But the northern part, that topography was formed
by a cauldron volcano. A cauldron volcano. I
was reading that in the source material and the
scale of it is almost impossible to comprehend.
The source describes a cauldron volcano that
is like 20 to 30 kilometers wide. Yeah, massive.
And I kept trying to picture a normal mountain
blowing its top, but that doesn't fit a 30 kilometer
crater, does it? Not at all. A cauldron volcano
or a caldera doesn't form from a cone blowing
its peak outward. It's an implosion. Oh, an implosion.
OK. Right. Imagine a massive reservoir of magma
deep beneath the Earth's crust. When that magma
violently erupts and empties out, the structural
support for the ground above it simply vanishes.
So the ground just, it just falls in? Exactly.
The Earth's crust essentially gives way and swallows
itself. It collapses inward into the empty chamber
below. Oh, wow. I mean, it's like a collapsed
geological souffle, like a sinkhole the size
of a city. Exactly like that. But on a geological
scale, accompanied by unimaginable heat and force,
you're looking at the aftermath of a massive
collapsed geological event. Which makes the contrast
with the modern landscape so wild. Oh, absolutely.
Because if you go to the Strathbogie ranges today,
you don't see a terrifying smoking crater. The
topography has smoothed out over millions of
years into these quiet undulating plateaus that
are dissected by little stream. Right, it's very
peaceful now. You do have some prominent peaks.
I mean, the source mentions Mount Strathboogie
stands out as the highest point at a 1 ,033 meters.
And then you have Mount Barrenhead at 832 meters.
Mount Wombat as well. Yeah, Mount Wombat at 791
meters and Sugarloaf at 691 meters. But mostly
it's this rolling granite high country. Right,
but having a high elevation doesn't automatically
make a place an island. What turns the Strathboogie
into an isolated fortress is what borders those
plateaus. Okay. The range sits to the north of
the main Great Dividing Range and what completely
separates it is water, specifically the deep
valleys of the Goldburn River and the Broken
River. Now I've heard people compare rivers to
a moat, but that feels a bit too passive, you
know? A moat is just standing water. These river
valleys seem far more structural. That is a really
crucial distinction. These aren't just streams
you can casually wade across. These valleys represent
deep geographic trenches carved over millennia.
So they're actual physical barriers. Exactly.
Because the Strathpookies are elevated on this
granite plateau and entirely bounded by these
deep river valleys, the ecosystem is physically
cut off. from the rest of the continent's mountain
ranges. Wow. A flora and fauna on the plateau
couldn't easily migrate down across the river
valleys and up into the Great Dividing Range.
So the plants and animals were effectively trapped
on this elevated granite raft. Which forces them
to evolve in a semi -closed system. The physical
separation produced completely unique biogeographic
and ecological patterns. It really is an ecological
island stranded on the mainland of Victoria.
So we have this isolated, fortress -like plateau.
To European eyes in the 1800s, an elevated, heavily
forested region like that looked like an impenetrable,
empty wilderness. But the geography was actually
hiding a completely different reality, one that
brings us to the first humans to navigate this
landscape. And this is where the physical environment
directly challenges the written historical record.
Oh yes. The Strathbogie Ranges are located squarely
in Tongarung country. The Tongarung people have
a history with this landscape that stretches
back into deep time. Right, and here's where
it gets really interesting, because the sources
point out a massive glaring contradiction. They
do. If you go back and read the documented white
history of the area, the colonial logs, the diaries,
the early maps, Those written records generally
asserted that the mountain range was not often
frequented by indigenous people. Yeah, the official
narrative was essentially, there's nothing up
there, it's too dense, it's too difficult, nobody
was using this land. And if you only look at
history through the lens of a colonial record
keeper, you might believe that. Because the European
model of habitation relied on highly visible
markers of ownership. You know, cleared fields,
permanent wooden structures, fenced off grazing
land. Right, the stuff they were used to seeing
back home. Exactly. When early settlers looked
at the dense, heavily forested table land of
the Strathbogi's, they didn't see those European
markers, so they assumed it was a void. But they
were completely spectacularly wrong. Because
the physical evidence on the ground tells the
exact opposite story. The source notes that stone
artifacts are widely distributed all across the
Strathbogi table land. Widespread distribution
is the key phrase there. We aren't talking about
a single isolated campsite near the edge of the
range. We are talking about a vast footprint
of stone tools scattered across the plateau.
Wow. And you have to picture the environment.
At the time, this entire table land was once
a dense, formidable forest. So if you were to
walk through that table land today and brush
away the topsoil, you wouldn't find emptiness.
You would find the silent, physical proof of
a civilization. Exactly. But how does a colonial
historian completely miss an entire population
utilizing a landscape? How does that happen?
Well, it is a profound example of historical
bias coming up against hard archaeological evidence.
The colonists just couldn't read the landscape.
They were looking for the wrong things. Right.
They didn't understand the nuanced, complex ways
the Tungurung people were interacting with that
forested environment. The widespread presence
of those stone tools provides irrefutable evidence
of regular and highly likely seasonal utilization
of the region. The Tungurung were navigating
that terrain, utilizing its resources and managing
the forest in ways the settlers simply couldn't
perceive. It makes you wonder how much of our
accepted historical record is just someone looking
at a complex system and mistakenly writing down
the word empty. A lot of it, probably. But as
we move forward chronologically in the sources,
that supposed emptiness suddenly becomes a very
loud, very crowded scramble for land. Oh, the
squatter era. Yes. Once the European settlers
realized the agricultural potential of the region,
the isolation of the strath bogeys didn't stop
them at all. Starting from about 1842, we see
a massive influx of squatters aggressively pushing
into the ranges. And the names of these early
pastoral stations feel like they were pulled
straight out of a frontier novel. They really
do. You had Bailey Hill, Strathbogie, Springsay,
Wombat Hill. Most of those were set up in the
Rough Hill country. And then you had stations
like St. Field and Borodoman stretching into
the edges of the ranges. They were driving in
sheep and hundreds of cattle trying to force
this rugged, granite environment to yield a profit.
There were a few who stayed, like John Gall at
Wombat Hill, and John Kissick arrived a bit later,
around 1847. But to give you a sense of the sheer
audacity and the scale of the greed during this
period, you really only have to look at the land
holdings of a single man. William Forlong. Yes.
By the early 1850s, Forlong had acquired Strathbogie
and several other pastoral stations in the area.
Okay, the numbers on this absolutely blew my
mind. How much land did Forlong actually control?
According to the records between the early 1850s
and 1867, William Forlong owned 75 ,000 hectares
of the Strathbogie region. Wait, 75 ,000 hectares?
For those more familiar with the imperial system,
what is that? That is 185 ,000 acres of land.
185 ,000 acres. For one person in this incredibly
rugged, steep granite terrain. How do you even
physically comprehend a property the size of
a small European nation in the 1850s? You could
ride a horse for days and never leave your own
backyard. It's staggering. He really is like
a modern corporate monopoly. He essentially looked
at this isolated ecological island and bought
the entire thing. It was a monopolistic land
grab, yeah. And it kicked off a brave but incredibly
intense period of industrialization. The settlers
were determined to tame the landscape. Right,
they were building it up. Oh yeah, by the late
1800s, infrastructure was desperately trying
to keep pace with the agricultural ambitions.
A post office opened in Strathbogie. on July
10th, 1878. And then the ultimate symbol of trying
to force a landscape to do what you want, the
dueling butter factories. Oh, yes. I found this
detail so fascinating. In 1891, a butter factory
is built at Strathbogie South. And then literally
the very next year in 1892, a second factory
is constructed at Strathbogie North. It perfectly
illustrates the boom mentality of the era. They
were treating dairy production like a gold rush.
They were hauling heavy industrial equipment
up into these gran - Highlands convinced they
could conquer the topography and turn the region
into a permanent agricultural powerhouse. But
the landscape always has the final say, doesn't
it? It does. Always. Look at the Strathbogie
region today. A place that once hosted these
massive 185 ,000 acre pastoral empires and competing
19th century dairy factories. What is left of
all that ambition? Very, very little. According
to the source, today there are no major towns
in the ranges. There are very few major roads.
The Strathbogie Township boasts a single general
store and the nearby Ruffy Township has a place
called The Pantry. Yep, that's it. That is the
extent of the metropolis they tried to build.
It's almost funny. It is, but it brings us right
back to the geology we discussed at the start.
How so? The uncompromising geography. You know,
the steep ridges, the deep river trenches, the
acidic granite soil ultimately dictated the region's
fate. It simply wasn't conducive to sustaining
a sprawling industrialized center. So it pushed
them out. Exactly. The agricultural boom briefly
flared up, but the terrain pushed back. It reverted
to being a quiet, isolated pocket. The landscape
ultimately tames the settlers, not the other
way around. Okay, so what does this all mean?
We have a rugged, isolated plateau that thwarted
the ambitions of 19th century industrialists.
But that same uncompromising geography doesn't
just dictate where humans can build towns. According
to the sources, it actively protects the region
from total ecological annihilation. You're referring
to the fire paradox of the Strathboki's. I am.
Now, the sources make it clear that the region
is not somehow magically immune to fire. Given
the climate, the type of vegetation, and the
topography, the area likely experienced periodic
bushfires long before European settlement. Right.
Fire is a fundamental part of the Australian
ecology. And there's a documented history of
more localized fires in recent decades. The sources
specifically highlight a fire in Strathbogie
in 1990 and the Longwood East Creighton's Creek
fire in 2014. So the environment certainly can
burn. It can. But, and this is the part that
genuinely stopped me in my tracks. When you look
at the historical record of the major Victorian
bushfires, the truly catastrophic, century -defining
mega -fires that reshaped the entire state, The
Strathboki ranges just, they dodge them. They
do. The source lists the years of these mega
fires, 1851, 1939, 1983, 2003, 2006, and 2009.
None of those catastrophic events penetrated
the Strathboki ranges. It is a phenomenal statistical
anomaly. Right. To survive over a century and
a half of the most intense fire conditions on
Earth without suffering a direct hit from a mega
fire requires more than just luck. That is exactly
what I'm trying to wrap my head around. How does
a heavily forested elevated area surrounded by
some of the most fire prone country on the planet
manage to evade destruction time and time again?
Like what is the actual mechanism protecting
this place? It all comes back to the architectural
layout of the terrain we established earlier.
Yeah. Think about what a catastrophic mega fire
requires to maintain its momentum. Fuel and wind.
Exactly. It needs continuous unbroken fuel and
it needs wind funnels to drive that heat forward.
Now, place that fire into the context of the
Strathbogie topography. Right, the river valleys.
The moat. Precisely. A fire raging across the
plains suddenly hits the deep, sheer trenches
of the Gulburn or Broken River valleys. Those
valleys act as massive physical breaks in the
continuity of the vegetation. Oh, I see. The
radiant heat struggles to jump that gap with
the same intensity. And even if embers do cross
over, they are met with the steep, erratic granite
ridges of the plateau, which actively disrupt
the wind patterns that drive the fire forward.
That makes perfect sense. Yeah, the very geological
features that created an isolated ecological
island and frustrated the colonial farmers, they
act as a structural fortress wall against fire
behavior. The momentum of the fire is broken
by the train itself. That is incredible. The
violence of a collapsing 30 kilometer cauldron
volcano millions of years ago is quite literally
acting as a physical shield for the forest today.
It really is. And speaking of how that ancient
geology shapes the present, those ancient rocks
are providing a totally different kind of bounty
in the modern era. The region might have lost
its butter factories, but it gained something
far more sophisticated. the Scraft Bogey wine
region. Yes. Which compared to the deep time
we've been discussing is a very recent development.
It really began taking shape in the mid 1970s.
Right. The sources credit a pioneer named Dr.
Peter Tisdall, who planted a new vineyard at
a location called Ment Helen. And from that initial
planting, the industry has just flourished. Today,
there are over 25 vineyards operating in the
region. And the specific placement of these vineyards
is key. They're situated at altitudes ranging
from 100 up to about 650 meters. But altitude
is only half the equation for a successful cool
climate vineyard. You have to look at the soil
profile. The source specifies that these plantings
are thriving on acidic sandy loams. And where
do acidic sandy loams come from in an elevated
plateau? They are the direct result of decomposed
granite. It all connects perfectly, the Strathoggy
granotierite we discussed in the very first segment.
Exactly. Millions of years of that ancient hard
rock slowly weathering, breaking down, and decomposing
under the elements until it turns into acidic
sandy loam. Wow. And that specific soil profile
is highly sought after by winemakers. Sandy loam
drains incredibly well, which forces the roots
of the vines to dig deep and struggle just enough
to produce highly concentrated, flavorful grapes.
that unique mineral profile, combined with the
cooler temperatures at that altitude, is exactly
what you need to grow the region's main varieties.
You have Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir,
and Shiraz. There's something so poetic about
that. You have this incredibly violent explosive
geological origin story, a cauldron volcano collapsing
in on itself. Right. And the end result millions
of years later is the perfect soil drainage required
to sit back and enjoy a world class glass of
local Pinot Noir. The geology created the island,
the island preserved the soil and the soil produces
the wine. It is a perfect synthesis. It forces
you to realize that the earth beneath our feet
is never just an inert background stage for human
events. No, not at all. The bedrock is an active
participant. It dictates the boundaries of what
is possible. It truly does. So to wrap up our
journey today, we started with a Devonian cauldron
volcano imploding to form a granite island in
the sky. We looked at how that dense forested
island held the unwritten history of the Tongarung
people, proving their presence through thousands
of scattered stone tools, while the colonial
record books claim the land was empty. Exactly.
We watched 19th century squatters attempt to
conquer that terrain with 185 ,000 acre monopolies
and dueling butter factories only to be politely
rejected by the landscape and reduced to a single
general store in the pantry. And we saw how those
exact same geological walls act as an impenetrable
shield against century -defining mega -fires
while quietly decomposing into the perfect soil
for cool climate wines. It is a landscape that
has consistently refused to conform to expectations,
which leaves you with a pretty profound thought
to walk away with. We often look at mountain
ranges and assume we understand them. We think
of them as these highly visible, permanent, heavily
mapped things, just giant rocks doing exactly
what we expect rocks to do. But when you examine
the Strathbogie Ranges, an ecological island
that hid an entire civilization's footprint in
stone and somehow magically deflects catastrophic
megafires, you have to wonder, what other quiet
pockets of the world are secretly playing by
their own rules just waiting for you to look
a little closer?