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Updated: May 10, 2025
I am the only traveller who has explored that part of the interior, but of this more hereafter. About this time Strezletki and McMillan, both from New South Wales, explored the region now the easternmost part of the colony of Victoria, which Strezletki called Gipp's Land. These two explorers were rivals, and both, it seems, claimed to have been first in that field.
Gipp's Land is a large district about twice the size of Wales, which begins at a place called Bunyip, about fifty miles to the east of Melbourne. The train to Sale, the capital there are two a day takes about six hours, and the distance is 127 miles. As there are no engineering difficulties, the line did not cost more than £6000 a mile.
He looked over all the beauty and undeveloped wealth of Gipp's Land, which shall yet, please God, in fulness of time, be one of the brightest jewels in the King of England's crown, but with eyes that saw not. He turned towards the snow, and mounting his horse, which he had led up the cliff, held steadily westward. His plans were well laid.
So that, when the police were searching Gipp's Land for these men, they, with the exception of two or three, were snugly ensconced on the other water-shed, waiting till the storm should blow over. In these huts Hawker intended to lie by for a short time, living on such provisions as were left, until he could make his way northward, on the outskirts of the settlements, and escape.
Gipp's Land did not look its best at the time of my visit. There had been a drought, more or less, for three years, and everything was dried up. The cattle appeared parched, with hard dry skins. Since then, however, there has been a good deal of rain. Sale itself is an uninteresting town of 3,000 inhabitants, with streets at right angles, and the usual Public Library and Mechanics' Institute.
I have made two visits into the country, one to the neighbourhood of Ballarat to the north-west of Melbourne, the other into Gipp's Land, which is to the east. I went to Gipp's Land to pay a visit to a gentleman well known to the racing world, who has a large estate in the neighbourhood of Sale. Victorians are nothing if not fond of sport.
He told me that he was the second squatter in Gipp's Land. When he first went there in 1841, it took him eighteen days to return to Melbourne through the bush. For six days they had provisions, but for the rest of the time they subsisted on native bears i.e., sloths. Now he owns about 20,000 acres of the best part of Gipp's Land.
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