Recent Investigation

The Moat Café below the Wheeler Centre has been on my ‘to-be-checked-out’ list for quite some time and today it was crossed it off that list.  I was on my way to do a spot of hospital visiting and had some time to spare, so I stopped off to investigate.

It was a rather horrid, windy, dusty, hot day and some time in an underground haven out of the heat, dirt and filth seemed like a good idea.  It seemed an even better idea when I sat down, looked through the menu and found The Moat version of an Eton Mess.  Perfect antidote to the day outside.

Almost perfect – it’s not your standard Eton Mess, when it has tapioca as an ingredient but this minor variation on the theme didn’t stop me from ordering it. The ingredients are:  vanilla tapioca pudding,  rhubarb, strawberry, mint & lemon curd.  A tarted up and distant relative to the original Eton Mess.

A slightly messy photo of The Moat version of Eton Mess

I ate it all, tarted up or not, like a good little girl. And then I ordered coffee, helped myself to a book from the shelves and in Cameron Forbes’ Australia on Horseback I read an account of the Warrigal Creek massacre in 1843.

A glass of wine or a book? Difficult decision.

Warrigal Creek was not far from my childhood stamping ground and at that time also the name of a large pastoral property, situated in the area of the creek of the same name.  This killing of aboriginal people was a black mark on the history of the district, and was very rarely mentioned.

According to Cameron Forbes' version of the story, it happened along these lines:

Brataulong Aborigines had killed a nephew of Lachlan Macalister, one of the more powerful of the Scottish settler’s.  In reprisal, the so-called Highland Brigade, formed by Angus McMillan the leader of the Scottish clan, set to and cornered the Brataulung at Warrigal Creek and killed what has been estimated at between 60 and 120 aborigines.  

According to local legend, and unsurprisingly, the creek ran red with blood.

Forbes’ account is in total contrast to The Valley of the Sky, a small novel which we read in the first year of my secondary education, some 60 years ago.  In the school version, Angus McMillan was a benevolent ruler of the lands he took in Gippsland, on good terms with the local aboriginal people and butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth.

I close Australia on Horseback and this reflection on a dark part of Australia’s past, drain my coffee cup, pay the cashier and reluctantly return to the blast furnace outside.