Wombat Creek is a H0 (1:87) scale model of a fictional town situated somewhere in the Victorian Goldfields, Australia.
The time is 1963. Geelong wins the VFL Championship against Hawthorn (109– 60). John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. ValentinaTeresjkova is the first woman in Space. The men behind The Great Train Robbery get £2.6 million from a Royal Mail train heading from Glasgow to London. The town consists of several buildings. The “Wombat Creek Bank and Gold Exchange” is a prominent building in the town centre. You will also find several other commercial buildings; among them the daily newspaper“W.C. Chronicle”(colloquial known as the "Toilet Paper") and “Wombat Creek Brewing Company” (Famous for the “Wombat Bitter”). “The Big Nugget Gold Mine” is situated at the Western outskirts of town near the small Chinatown. The War Memorial is in a small park along East Street. The town’s mayor Alfred Campbell together with his son David Campbell owns several businesses, including the bank, the pub and the newspaper. AC/DC basically run the town and make most decisions on behalf of the rest of Wombat Creek’s residents, who, on the other hand, are too busy with their own businesses. The mayor’s latest initiative is Wombat Creek Tramways. Wombat Creek doesn’t really need a tram system, but AC reckons tramways will improve the town’s reputation. Partly because of limited funds the tramways' construction and rolling stock depend heavily on second-hand requirements from other Australian and overseas tramways.
In December 2021 a teaspoon landed in Wombat Creek.
The idea was to cut of the top for a statue in a prominent location. Years went by and nothing happened. Finally in June 2026 some action is taken. Not in Wombat Creek but in Gumnut Gully.
The statue of a gold prospector is mounted on a rock (piece of eucalyptus bark) and placed in a little grassy area next to Stony Creek. To properly embed the rock into the ground, some dirt (tea leaves) and shrubs are put round it and secured with diluted PVA. Unfortunately the glue seeps into the grass and a ‘wet’ area appears. What to do? Well, rig up a hose (thin wire) and a man is set to water the plants. But why is he watering all over the place? Because his attention is to the girl sunbathing. (I had to ‘decapitate’ the figure and turn the head 90 degrees)
The original Star Hotel was first built as a single storey building in the late 1860s and overtime it was expanded with a second story added. In 1892, Mr William Parker, proprietor and licensee “Completed the thorough renovation of his commodious premises which compare favourably with any country hotel in the colony.” [Walhalla Chronicle, 8 March, 1892]. With the change of proprietors the hotel also changed name. For example from Parker’s Star Hotel to Conlan’s Star Hotel.
The Star Hotel survived the licensing reviews of the early 20th century and was the sole hotel to continue in Walhalla after the closure of the gold mines in 1914. It traded through the 1920s and 1930s and by the second world war was in a very poor state.
Unfortunately, in late December 1951, a faulty hot water service started a fire and the building burnt to the ground. The site was taken over by the Shire of Narracan who built a toilet block on the land and turned the area into an informal carpark.
In early 1997 a development proposal was put forward and a planning permit application made for a new Star Hotel. Walhalla’s Star Hotel was built as an accommodation hotel with twelve large ensuite bedrooms, a guest lounge as well as a restaurant (named after Parker) and bar for the guests of the hotel. The official opening of the hotel occurred on 11 March, 1999.
If you compare photos of Gumnut Gully’s Star Hotel and present days Walhalla Star Hotel you will notice the different configuration of doors and windows. The Gumnut Gully version is based on photos from 1892. Over the years, before the hotel was razed by fire, the front had some changes to the windows, but not as ‘radical’ as the rebuilt version. It has been impossible to find photos of the back of the hotel. There fore what part is not accurate. Likewise, the original colour scheme is unknown. Instead, I have used the modern hotel as a template.
The guest in the beer garden are sitting at tables and benches made of thin slivers of bamboo. Unfortunately, no beers are to be seen and the door to the bar is slammed shut. Until beers are served the song with Slim Dusty is quite appropriate.
It looks like the hotel is about ready for business. A truck has turned up with a load of beer kegs. Hopefully it will not be long before the first guest can have a drink or two and perhaps a bed for the night.
With the roof up, only a few fittings like gutters and iron lace work at the front are missing. Passengers arriving by train should not find it hard to locate the hotel. The writing on the roof is certainly big enough.
My wife reckons the hotel needs a beer garden at the back. The production of tables and benches has commenced!
The railway crossing on the way into Gumnut Gully is now ‘secured’ with ‘Railway Crossing’ signs. I have chosen the 1947 version with the boards crossing each other in right angles.
The brown sign in the lawn reads ‘Welcome to Gumnut Gully’. A close up looks like this:
After years of standing obsolete the signal box has commenced operating. Two red/green signals have been erected. Their purpose is to guard against collisions between trams on the Bride Road line and trams coming from the Explosives Factory.
The signals are linked to the chosen direction of the Explosives line. If a tram runs towards the Factory, the signal next to the signal box will be ‘red’ and the signal in Bridge Road will be ‘green’. A tram leaving the Factory will reverse the signals.
The signal in Bridge Road only applies to trams. A sign will be put up, telling ordinary road users to ignore the signal.
