Tree dates back to golden days

By Lachlan Ellis

An historical relic from the 1800s remains standing in Barrys Reef, and it’s not a building or a piece of art.

The monkey puzzle tree, also known as the bunya pine, is indigenous to north Australia, but one was planted near Thurgoods Lane North in Barrys Reef in the 19th century.

Blackwood Historical Society member Ray Castellin said the tree – which looks “completely out of place” amongst the other species of tree around it – was used as a historical reference point, such is its age.

“This road had six pubs along it, mines, houses everywhere…the tree is our reference point to where everything was really, because it was there back then,” Mr Castellin told the Moorabool News.

“If you touch it, you’ll figure out why it’s called a monkey puzzle tree…it’s prickly, it’d be quite a puzzle for a monkey to climb. Barrys Reef was at its prime in the 1870s, so I’d say this tree dates back to then.”

Mr Castellin believes the seed for the tree was brought over from England by John Mounter, who allegedly owned a nearby house and mine.

“That’s the story anyway, you’re never going to fully know. Blackwood has a few hidden too…but this one is a beauty, it’s on its own in its own clearing, not hidden by anything. You can see it from the road if you look straight at it, otherwise you’d never know it was here,” he said.

“Barrys Reef was bigger than Blackwood tenfold back in the day, when all the mines were here. Blackwood was mad for gold out of the Lerderderg for three or four years, but Barrys Reef was more shafts and tunnels, the deep gold. So, the gold rush lasted a lot longer.”

Barrys Reef sits just three kilometres north of Blackwood on the Blackwood/Trentham Road in the Moorabool Shire.