Linda Cuttriss

The Scots and Red Wonthaggi

16/4/2026

Scottish immigrants who arrived from the 1890s to the 1930s helped to shape the new coal town.
Photo: Wonthaggi & District Historical Society

By Linda Cuttriss

SOME of the first colonisers of Bunurong/Boonwurrung lands were Scottish. In 1835 Samuel Anderson established a wheat farm, flour mill and salt works on the Bass River. In 1842 the McHaffie brothers leased the whole of Phillip Island. In 1851 George Black set up the Tarwin Run which eventually stretched from Cape Paterson to Cape Liptrap.

These men were part of a proud tradition of Scottish immigrants as empire builders and entrepreneurs. Their descendants are often remembered for their contribution to Australia’s political and social elites.

The Scottish immigrants who arrived from the 1890s to the 1930s were from the other side of the tracks but had no less impact. Their militant unionism honed down coalmines and in shipyards and textile mills of industrial Scotland helped shape Australia’s working class labour movements and Wonthaggi played its part.

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From Italy to Wonthaggi

16/2/2026

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Giovanni Storti with produce including cheeses, olive oil and wine. Mitchell Mine, Kilcunda in background. Photo: Wonthaggi Historical Society - undated

By Linda Cuttriss

WHEN I was little, the house on the corner from my grandparents in Wonthaggi had a vegetable garden that took up the whole front yard. Tall sticks held up vines heavy with plump, red tomatoes in summer. It was beautiful yet strange to see vegetables where normally there’d be lawn. Grandma told me it was the Gervasis’ place and that they were Italian, as if that would explain this unusual wonder.

Later I learned that in the 1920s and 1930s, like my grandfather who came from the north of England, men were coming from the north of Italy to work at the State Coal Mine. My grandfather was a coal miner and the Italian men subsistence farmers, but they all came for the chance of a ‘better life’.

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From the Old Country to Wonthaggi

9/11/2025

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Entrance to town from Wonthaggi Railway Station as it was when Emily and Jack arrived, 1927.
Photo: State Library of Victoria

By Linda Cuttriss

EMILY’S eyes scanned the crowd on the wharf below for the colour of her brother’s cap and jacket hoping for one last glimpse, one last chance to wave goodbye before the ship sailed. It was the face of the woman standing beside him that she was most desperate to see, the loving eyes of her mother to hold in her memory.

She hadn’t pushed her way forward, but Emily was a young mother with a toddler gripped to her hip and those who were taller had let her through. All cut from the same cloth, fashioned from generations of coalmining families, they looked out for each other as they stood together on the deck that cold Liverpool day.

There was a hush on deck as the ship pulled away from the dock, as every woman and man tried to quell the feelings that could so easily overwhelm them. There were quiet sobs but mostly they all just stood there and stared as the stretch of water before them widened and the crowd on the wharf slowly shrank to a blur and dissolved into grey.

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From tent town to model town

18/8/2025

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Graham Street looking east with children leaving school, Ludbrooks and the now demolished
Powlett Hostel (Powlett Hotel from 1915 and now demolished) November 1911, just two years after the first miners arrived in Tent Town. Photo: Wonthaggi Historical Society

By Linda Cuttriss

MOST of the towns around Bass Coast started small and slowly grew to service the early settlers taking up land in the surrounding area. Wonthaggi arrived much later than most, and it would grow with a speed second to none.

Wonthaggi began with a clear and singular purpose. It was to be the site of Australia’s first state-owned coal mine with a ‘Model Township’ built alongside that would have government housing, water reticulation, sewerage, a hospital and other civic amenities.

The bold plan didn’t happen straight away. The idea was first hatched in 1908 when thick coal seams were found on the Powlett Plains. Members from both sides of parliament argued that the Powlett deposits should be retained for state use to break Victoria’s dependence on New South Wales coal.

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Reef Island and the shifting line

22/7/2025

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The shape-shifting Reef Island. Photos: Linda Cuttriss

By Linda Cuttriss

AS I look over Western Port on my way from San Remo my eyes are often drawn to the long, thin strip of land that sits just above the water off the eastern shore of the bay. At low tide the line stretches all the way to the mainland. As the tide moves in, the line slowly shrinks to an island, known as Reef Island.

I’ve often wondered if it’s just a trick of the eye or if it’s possible to walk across that long line to Reef Island when the tide is low. After years of watching this shift-shaper from afar I’m setting out to have a closer look.

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Long haul to first state coal mine

24/3/2025

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Powlett Coal Fields, 1909. Photo: State Library of Victoria

By Linda Cuttriss

PAST the Mitchell Mine mullock heap and beyond Kilcunda’s rolling breakers lies the Powlett River valley. It was here, at the place we now know as Wonthaggi, that a truly extraordinary feat of human endeavour unfolded over a few months from November 1909 to early 1910.

Dust rose in great drifts across the valley amidst the sound of men’s voices shouting out, working together, the clanging of steel, metal on metal, hammers coming down on timber, oil engines chugging, bullocks bellowing and the sweat of men and beasts.

The State Coal Mine came to life almost overnight. But it took more than half a century and a state of emergency for it to happen.

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Kilcunda coal

2/2/2025

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Mitchell Mine with mullock heap and poppet head.
Photo: Wonthaggi Historical Society

By Linda Cuttriss

THE view of white-capped breakers rolling to the shore at Kilcunda is one of Bass Coast’s most iconic coastal scenes. That view has had a hold on me since I was a child in the back seat of the family car, returning from trips to Melbourne.

The great pile of grey rubble on the left in the foreground was always there too. From early on I knew that unnatural hill was a mullock heap, waste from an old coal mine, but what did that mean? What was it doing there?

I never thought to have a closer look until recently while stopped for roadworks outside Kilcunda I noticed the sign marked ‘Mitchell Mine Historic Reserve’. I made a quick turn left and parked at the top of the hill near the rail trail.

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Walking Screw Creek Trail

9/12/2024

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Destined to be cleared for housing, thanks to a massive community effort, this bushland is now a wildlife refuge
and Bass Coast’s newest walking trail.

By Linda Cuttriss

IT’S a beautiful sunny morning and I’ve come to walk the new Screw Creek Trail at Inverloch. The trail is a two-kilometre, natural-surface interpretive trail that winds through lowland forest adjacent to Screw Creek.

Directional bollards guide you along the trail and 14 of them have QR codes that link to short videos about the history, environment and wildlife of the Screw Creek Nature Conservation Reserve and a trail map to show your location.

Screw Creek Trail is a project of South Gippsland Conservation Society co-ordinated by the Society’s Project Convenor and long-term volunteer John Cuttriss. Terry Melvin’s videography and editing capture many perspectives of the reserve and enhance the trail experience.

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In plain view

12/10/2024

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Our new rural tourism strategy threatens the very landscape that attracts tourists to Phillip Island. A conference centre and 5-star hotel would spoil the view at Pyramid Rock.

By Linda Cuttriss

IT IS extraordinary to have such an array of stunning coastal features and scenic landscapes, and so many interesting wildlife species on an island that stretches little more than 20 kilometres in length.

As we drive across Phillip Island, through gently undulating farmland with sweeping views to Western Port Bay and Bass Strait, it is clear that rural land is intrinsic to the island’s outstanding scenic values.

Phillip Island’s environment and landscape is what makes it so special. It is central to the lifestyle, health and well-being of its community and key to the visitor economy.

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A wreck, a whale and that shiny black rock

14/8/2024

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The Artisan stranded at Wreck Beach, April 1901.
Photo: Wonthaggi & District Historical Society

By Linda Cuttriss

I DRIVE out of Wonthaggi towards Harmers Haven, turn left at the end of the road and swing into the car park at Wreck Beach. I pass a historical marker sign on my way in but when I walk across to have a look the plaque is gone. In its place someone has drawn an anchor and written 'Artisan, 1901', the name and date of the incident for which the beach is named.

The large barque Artisan was sailing from Manila in the Philippines via the Indian Ocean to take on a load of coal at Newcastle in New South Wales in April 1901 when a mighty storm drove her onto the shore platform. She was left stranded in an almost upright position and miraculously there was no loss of life. At low tide all the crew walked ashore.

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Autumn idyll

11/6/2024

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A succession of briliant autumn days. Photos: Linda Cuttriss

By Linda Cuttriss

OF ALL the seasons, autumn is my favourite and this year has been a beauty! Autumn is the settled season. Fine sunny days with hardly any wind. Soft light. Days that are not too hot and not too cold.

This year we had day after day of calm, clear, sunny days that started in late April and continued through May. The weather bureau explained that the unusually long run of fine weather was due to strong high-pressure systems called ‘blocking highs’ which stalled in the Great Australian Bight, blocking the usual eastward movement of weather and preventing rain-producing cold fronts from reaching the mainland.

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Across the Narrows

20/2/2024

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Photos: Linda Cuttriss

By Linda Cuttriss

IT IS such a simple thing, but I get a certain pleasure every time I cross the bridge. I briefly glance towards Cape Woolamai, check for fishing boats at the jetty and wonder what birds will be feeding in the shallows.

Today I have crossed to San Remo to walk the beach from the jetty towards the open sea.

I make my way along the path below San Remo Fisherman’s Co-op and take the stairs down to the beach. Two fancy fishing boats speed noisily towards the bridge while a tourist jetboat roars out along the channel. Several smaller fishing boats remain motionless off the sand bar.

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Back to the future

16/8/2023

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Wonthaggi’s State Coal Mine was once the engine room of Victoria’s economy. Could it have a new role as a centre of history, community, energy and creativity?

By Linda Cuttriss

THE State Coal Mine sits deep in the heart of Wonthaggi’s story. The heritage area honours the miners who laboured in damp, dark, dangerous conditions. It celebrates the co-operative spirit that built the town and preserves the history of Wonthaggi’s pivotal role in Victoria’s economic development. The underground tour is a compelling, immersive journey back in time and is crucial to drawing visitors to the town’s only tourist attraction.

The announcement by Environment Minister Ingrid Stitt and Bass Coast MP Jordan Crugnale of $1.5 million to restore the State Coal Mine and reinstate the underground tours is great news for the people of Wonthaggi, for the volunteers who have given their time and expertise over many years and for families with connections to the town’s coalmining days.

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A cautionary tale

22/6/2023

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It took almost 40 years to attain a sparse vegetation cover around the
man-made and very saline Kitty Miller Wetlands. Photos: Linda Cuttriss

By Linda Cuttriss

AT THE far end of Phillip Island, on private land not far from the Penguin Parade, the Kitty Miller Wetlands stretch across the landscape and shimmer in the afternoon sun. This morning as I drove past the wetlands down Kitty Millers Road, several days of rain have swelled the waterway that flows downstream to Swan Lake. Water flows over soft grasses. Black swans, purple swamphens and Cape Barren geese preen and feed in the morning sunshine. A white-faced heron stalks prey in shallow pools. Swallows swoop and dive and a willy wagtail flits across the ground. Further along, a wallaby bounds casually across the road.

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More than memories

16/5/2023

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The author's mother Irene went underground for the first time in 2014 to see the conditions in which her father had worked for 43 years.

By Linda Cuttriss

IN 1925 my grandfather Jack Thompson emigrated from a coal mining town in the north of England to work in the State Coal Mine, Wonthaggi, where he worked until the mine closed in 1968. My grandmother Emily followed with their young son a year later, after Jack had found a house for them.

My mum Irene grew up in Reed Crescent and became a secretary at the Wonthaggi Co-operative Society Store where she worked until she married. Grandma bought medications from the Miners’ Dispensary, Grandad had a beer with mates at the Workmen’s Club on Saturdays, and on weekends Irene and her friends went to the pictures at the Union Theatre (now Wonthaggi Union Community Arts Centre).

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Call of the wild: Scenic Estate Reserve

13/12/2022

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By Linda Cuttriss

Part One
ON A sunny day in early spring, I pull off Phillip Island Road at the butterfly sculpture for a walk in Scenic Estate Conservation Reserve. A wide gravel path follows the grid of streets laid out in 1960 for a subdivision known locally as ‘Chinamans Estate’ because many of the 332 house blocks were bought by investors in Hong Kong. After weeks of rain the swamp paperbark scrub that covers much of the reserve is immersed in shallow pools and it is easy to see why the estate was deemed unfit for development and no houses were ever built.

As I venture deeper into the reserve the muffled hum of traffic fades, absorbed by dense swamp paperbark thickets that shelter me from the thrum of the outside world. I hear water trickling and bubbling into tiny streams, birds call to each other through the scrubby trees and the fragrance of paperbark flowers drifts through the air.

Tall, slender papery-barked stems crowd closely together, their green mop-tops touch and enclose the canopy. In places where they stand further apart, light streams through, letting luminous green grasses and sedges grow.

A cacophony of frog calls surrounds me. It must be breeding time with every male in the neighbourhood calling for a mate. Every puddle large and small resonates with their calls and the wetland ahead is pandemonium. The sound subsides as I approach but when I stop and stand still the volume rises to fever pitch. I open my FrogID app and press record. It is hard to believe that only two frog species, common eastern froglets and eastern banjo frogs, are making all these marvellous sounds.

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Forrest Caves and the passing of time

14/9/2022

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By Linda Cuttriss

ON THE south coast of Phillip Island there is a lovely long beach rich with stories spanning millennia. Like elsewhere along Bass Coast, the beach at Forrest Caves was formed around six thousand years ago as a rising sea carried sand from the floor of Bass Strait to the raw edge of the land. Wind winnowed sand from these beaches building dunes that became covered with grasses and hardy shrubs. Parts of the land fringe became submerged as rocky reefs and those that remained close to the surface created habitats for abalone, limpets and other shellfish.

Aboriginal family groups lived across the coastal lowlands that once connected the mainland to the island now known as Tasmania, before the sea flooded Bass Strait. It is hard to grasp the magnitude of change that generations of First People faced as the sea swallowed their lands and they were forced to retreat to higher ground.

Historical postcard: black and white postcard 1940s A.J. Murray, Phillip Island and District Historical Society Accessed 24 Aug 2022

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In the mood for winter

20/7/2022

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By Linda Cuttriss

WINTER has a bad reputation but I love the way it swings smoothly through all its moods. Wild and windy. Crisp, still and sunny. Calm, grey and drizzly. And back again.

On some winter days swell from storms in the Southern Ocean crashes violently upon the rocks. At other times the sea is calm and serene. Sometimes there are days of heavy rain changing paddocks into wetlands. On clear days sunshine illuminates green pastures and shimmers across the bay. Some mornings fog settles in the hollows.

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Summer bliss with a twist

24/2/2022

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By Linda Cuttriss

ONE of the best things for me about summer is plunging into the ocean. The temperature is just right. Not too warm like the tropics, cool enough to be invigorating and not too cold like in winter. Apparently, cold water swimming boosts the immune system, improves circulation and reduces stress, but it’s not for me. Most years I take my first plunge around late November and stretch it through until early April.

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Of magic, mystery and monsters

7/10/2021

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Linda Cuttriss joins a woodlands walk and finds a new kind of
magic in the hills above Grantville and The Gurdies.

By Linda Cuttriss

OVER the ages, in countries around the world, woodlands and forests have evoked stories of magic, mystery and mystical beings. Britain and Europe have fairies and elves. Indigenous Australians have Little People and the Yowie or Big Foot.

When I was little, travelling with my parents and brothers along the Bass Highway from Inverloch to Melbourne and back, I would get a spooky feeling along that thickly wooded stretch of road around Grantville and The Gurdies. There were stories of strange things seen by the roadside at night.

I am no longer spooked as I drive along that stretch of road but what lies behind those trees has remained a mystery. So, when Save Western Port Woodlands sent out word of guided woodland walks I jumped at the chance to discover what is hiding in there.

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Nature's Showtime

13/11/2020

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Magpie parent with a worm for the babies.
All photos: Linda Cuttriss

By Linda Cuttriss

IT WAS late afternoon in early spring and the paddocks across the bay were gleaming green. ‘Whales!’ I heard my partner call. Dozens of seabirds, probably terns, were dive-bombing the water a few hundred metres offshore, but as usual I could see no whales. ‘Where?’ I cried out. Then I spotted them. A blow of spray, then another further away. The pair of whales must have been feeding too, for they stayed for ages, barely breaching the surface for a sip of air before disappearing then reappearing a short while later with another blow of spray.

As I watched the whales, a pair of magpies charged back and forth from their nest high up in a she-oak tree, sailing over the edge of the bluff and returning with bugs and worms in their beaks. Mama magpie had been on the nest for almost three weeks so the babies must have hatched.

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The sands of time

18/8/2019

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Linda Cutttriss guides us on a walk back through time along the Cowes beach.

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Sculptures by the Sea

12/6/2019

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Like the walls of an ancient fort, the Colonnades on Woolamai Beach look impregnable.

The Colonnades to Forrest Bluff

By Linda Cuttriss

THE Colonnades are vertical basalt columns that stand like walls of an ancient fort at the western end of Woolamai Beach on the south coast of Phillip Island.

I turn off Cape Woolamai Road and drive to the end of Tampa Road where a boardwalk leads over a short-tailed shearwater rookery to a lookout and steps down to the beach. I arrive at low tide so I have plenty of time to take a close look at The Colonnades and explore westward to Forrest Bluff before the incoming tide swallows up the beach.

From the lookout, breaking waves roll in from Bass Strait. Cape Woolamai lies to the east and Pyramid Rock sits offshore in the west.

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On sheltered waters

19/7/2018

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Words and photos by Linda Cuttriss

IT IS low tide on a crisp, clear winter’s morning in the small fishing village of Rhyll. Blinding sunlight fills the space between French Island and this quiet, sheltered shore on the north-east tip of Phillip Island. The Bass Hills are still smudged with morning mist on the other side of the bay. The receding tide has left behind a patchwork of green seagrass meadows, expanses of deep blue water, luminous sheets of pale blue and a myriad of puddles and pools.

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Beaches, bays and one fatal shot

2/11/2017

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Picture Elizabeth Cove, Ventnor, Phillip Island, photo by Linda Cuttriss, 2017

Linda Cuttriss visits Ventnor, where Phillip Island’s first European family once hosted members of Melbourne’s social elite.

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