Help sought on place names

Over the years regular readers will have come to know that I have an interest in Gippsland's place names. There have been about a dozen columns about them, and over that time I have been building a file which might, or might not, one day be published.

So far I have listed about 1200 names where I, with quite a lot of reader input and research, am fairly satisfied that I know the source of the name and, usually, when and how it came to be used.

I have a second, very frustrating list of those where I have no information or where I think the information I do have is a bit suspect. There 123 names on this list, if my count is right..

You already know what is coming, don't you? And you're right. I would really appreciate any help at all anyone can let me have about the 114 annoying, recalcitrant and frustrating names I am about to list.

Here they are. Some are well-known and some are not. All have names that were given for a reason. All those reasons are part of our history and reflections of our culture.

Arte River and Glen Arte

Bancroft Bay, Barton Island, Benedore River, Bloomfield, Boodyarn, Brunton's Bridge, Budgee Budgee, Buffalo, Buldah, Bulgaback or Bulgoback, Bull Beef Creek, Bullock Island, Bumberrah, Bundalaguah,

Caledonia Creek, Calrossie, Carneek, Cassilis, Charlotte's Spur, Chinese Tunnel, Christie's, Clematis, Cobbanah, Colquhoun, Connewarre, Coongulla, Coongulmerang, Coopracambra, Coppermine, Crooked River, Culloden, Curlip

Chinese Tunnel? That is the scariest place in Gippsland. A tunnel takes the Thomson under a precipitous ridge, and the diversion starts with a very scary whirlpool as if the Thomson is going down a plughole. Depending on the level of the river, that whirlpool can be very powerful and, believe me, to be swept into would inevitably kill you.

I understand that the purpose was to drain the water from a long bend of the Thomson so the bed could be prospected for gold – but then this is not far from Coppermine, isn't it? Where the water jets out of the mountain and back into the river is almost equally as frightening.

Darby River, Dewhurst, Digger Island, Doughboy Island, Dunlop River

Eagle Bay, Ellerside, Ellinbank, Fainting Range, Fairbank, Fear Not Creek, Fernbank, Ferndale, Flaggy Creek, Flannagan Island, Flooding Creek, Frenchman's Gully, Frenchman's Hill

Giffard, Glen Arte, Glenleath, Goat Island, Gwyther

I have some great stories about some of these places – remember the one about young Lennie Gwyther riding his horse to Sydney for the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a reward from his parents for his work on the family farm while his dad was away at the war? He had not even reached his teens. It is a great story but, when you do the arithmetic, the bridge was begun in 1923 and opened in 1932. Young Lennie would not have been much use on a farm during the Great War, but he might have been of great use in the 1920s if his Dad came home hurt, as did so many.

Do you see the problem? There are simple truths and there are complex truths, there are obvious truths and there are partial truths hidden in great stories that might or might not contain some measure of the truth. I'm not sure we'll ever get to the bottom of some of these, or that we'll ever quite know when we've done so.

Hiamdale (Timb's Crossing), Hillside, Horse Island, Huggett's Crossing, Humffray River

Ingeegoodbee, Jackson's Track, Jones Bay, Kallista, Kalorama, Kanowna Island, Kirrak,

Lady Manners-Sutton Creek, Lake Coleman, Lake Furnell, Lake Guthridge, Leonard Bay, Leonard Point, Little River, Loch River

You'd be surprised how many lakes we have in Gippsland. I have 16 on my list,13 of which I'm pretty sure I'm right about the origins of the names. Our own "Great Lakes" are Wellington, King and Victoria, which were called by the Ganai/Kurnai Murla, Ngarrang and Toonalook respectively. Lake Reeve (Walmungeree-ra) is also part of the system but not so major.

The North Arm and the Bunga Arm are other significant parts of this lakes system, and they were significant long before the white man arrived. If you add the feeder rivers, the Avon, La Trobe, Michell, Nicholson, Tambo and Thomson, you are looking a very large rivers and lakes system with vast importance in our past, our present and, most certainly, our future.

Maconochie River, McEvoy's Track, Merrangbaur Hill, Moss Vale Park, Myrtlebank

Now we come to the mountains, and there are quite a few that seem to have escaped the record-keepers - Mount Bogong, Mount Eccles, Mount Hedrick, Mount Nowa Nowa, Mount Puggaree, Mount Ramsay, Mount Sardine, Mount Selwyn, Mount Shillinglaw, Mount Tabberabba, Mount Tambo, Mount Tanjil (Tangel), Mount Tara, Mount Taylor, Mount Toorongo, Mount Useful, Mount Vereker, Mount Victoria.

Again, some of these may look obvious. It may be that they are, but we can't afford to be careless about this.

Napier, Nurran, Ocean Grange, Red River, Rigby Island (McPhail's Island), Robertson's Beach, Rotamah Island, Rotten Island, Ruby

St Margaret Island, Sarsfield, Silcock Hill. Slade Hill, Stacey's Bridge, Sunday Island, The Honeysuckles, Thalia Point, Tucker Creek Willis, Winnindoo, Wright.

Many of the names in this list will be the names of the first white people who settled there. Some should have possessive apostrophes, as in Smith's, and some should not. Because the places named for the first settlers in a spot (or the first inn-keepers) more or less just grew through usage rather than any official decision their origins often went quite unrecorded.

I made my initial alphabetical list from an old Broadbent's large-scale map of Gippsland, in about 1976 (this column started in 1973). It has been fascinating to look at the large number of Aboriginal names, often applied by people who didn't know the meanings and whose spelling of the Aboriginal languages were often bizarre because those words had never been written before.

It has been fascinating to relate the name to the development of Gippsland, even in recent years. It has been enjoyable to pick up ideas and explanations from all the people I've met through this column and my wanderings.

It has, on the other hand been extremely frustrating in two ones. The first is that there is often real disagreement about how the names were first applied. The second is that frequently when I read a map, or a book, I still find place names I have never found before. Very annoying.

Please help me tidy this up before the list gets much longer.

Helping to move

Warragul and Drouin Rotarians have been helping not-for profit organisation Olivia's Place make its move to new premises in Drouin.

Olivia's Place, that supports families during pregnancies and early childhood, had outgrown its Warragul premises and has relocated to Calway St, Drouin.

Local businesses Metricon, Dahlsens and Knauf plasterboard donated labour and materials for some renovations with Rotary Club members loading, transporting and unloading goods, setting up warehouse shelving and restacking shelves.

Operations manager Heather Kane said the 60 hours of work by the Rotarians had been well received.

Drouin Rotary donated six sets of shelves for the new premises and will establish a "Drouin Rotary Workshop" to refurbish donated goods to make them suitable for re-use.