(10.11.2025)
I arrive in Bogong Village after a stay on the grounds of the Mayday Hills Asylum in Beechworth. Bogong, like Mayday, feels deserted - its particular silence amplifying the everyday chatter of the natural surrounds. I think of the workers who built, lived, and laboured around these now-monuments, leaving traces of their lives behind. Approaching on foot from the east bank of Lake Guy, Junction Dam resembles a vast barn or hall nestled between the hills. I imagine the music and dances that once sustained the small community here.
Their memory lingers in the remnant vegetation, all introduced, exotic, or alien to the indigenous flora of the Victorian Alps, each species infused with nostalgia for another homeland. On walks with B-CSC Director Madelynne Cornish, we pass Azaleas, Flowering Ash, Spanish Lavender, Crack Willow, Sycamore Maple, and Giant Sequoia and Birch trees. I spot a Slippery Jack mushroom (Babka in Czech) and notice fossilised stumps emerging and disappearing with the rise and fall of the lake, its tides managed by AGL.
Bogong Village is tiered in design, and just below B-CSC sits “AGL Hill” - the underground Bogong Power Station, built ten storeys deep into the earth. I read that its roof is coated with liquid rubber, perhaps to keep the weeds out. Across the village, signs of industry remain - orange barrier mesh loops around potholes, landslips, and rocky outcrops. Did I just see someone spraying Round-Up from a moving ute? I heard he’s whipper-snipped the hydrangea gardens around a cottage. A single plastic hydrangea lies discarded by the road.
The King Parrots bark at my door. I’d better get up - we’re walking to Carlton this morning.