[Wallace Clarke Home Movies: Reel 26]

Wallace Clarke was an amateur cinematographer and filmmaker during the 1960s to the 1990s. Wallace was particularly keen on capturing both the Australian landscape and the people who enjoyed it. As well as Australian urban settings and some world travels, Wallace’s films focus on the many hiking and camping destinations that he visited.

Often carrying the credit, ‘A Walkabout Film’, Wallace’s movies indicate that he was part of a nature study and walking group called ‘The Walkabouters Club of Victoria Inc’. The ‘Walkabouters’ formed in 1968 as a result of a Council of Adult Education (CAE), Outback Study Tour to Central Australia’. Some of the attendees decided to start the Club in order to continue educative walks particularly around Victoria. The Club encouraged their resident artists and photographers to capture their activities.

The collection of Wallace’s films was donated to ACMI by his widow Gwenda Clarke and is shot on various formats, predominantly Standard 8mm and Super 8mm film.

This film is situated in the Victorian Alpine Region in the summer months when the only snows are at the very top of the mountains. Wallace focuses on the roads that wind, at times dramatically, through the mountain range as well as the surrounding landscape of trees, rocks and waterways.

Originally made on Super 8mm film.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:02:00 titles ‘WHC Presents’, ‘The Victorian Alps’
00:00:50:00 views from the road and a small old house
00:01:06:00 sign ‘Alpine Road’ with lots of information for the traveller
00:01:25:00 sign ‘You are now entering Mount Hotham Alpine Reserve’
00:01:35:00 looking across a corner of a dirt road high up in the mountains
00:02:22:00 roads, signs and aerials on top of the mountains and a melting snowman
00:02:58:00 brass sundial
00:04:46:00 sign warning to ‘keep to the left of the poles’ and directional sign to ‘Hotham, Diamentina, Harrietville’
00:05:20:00 chair lift pulley station and 1970s style four wheel drive vehicle, a chalet and hamlet
00:05:55:00 a small A-frame chalet or hut
00:06:30:00 views of roads, trees and cars with the mountains in the background
00:07:05:00 two purple swamp hens (common to wetlands or rivers of Eastern Australia)
00:07:50:00 signs ‘Mount Buffalo’ and ‘Eurobin Falls’ followed by views of cascading waters over rocky embankments and cliffs
00:08:30:00 sign ‘Mackeys Lookout’ followed by views out over the valleys below including cars negotiating the tight turns on the roads winding down the mountain
00:09:08:00 sign ‘Rollarson’s Falls’
00:09:35:00 hikers negotiate logs and rocks along the path
00:10:16:00 a long narrow waterfall into a lovely natural rock pool
00:11:00:00 looking out over misty valleys through an old walk bridge
00:13:08:00 a narrow waterfall in a rocky cliffface
00:13:36:00 snow along the sides of the road
00:14:26:00 sign ‘Toownag Gap, Mt Buffalo, Mt Bogong’ and a visitor looking through binoculars from a lookout
00:14:46:00 looking down from a higher vantage spot on a long windy road through the mountains toward a township beyond
00:15:20:00 views of electricity towers across the ranges
00:15:50:00 sign ‘Pretty Valley Branch East Kiewa River’
00:16:11:00 sign ‘rocky Valley Dam’ and scenes around the dam
00:17:05:00 sign ‘Strawberry Saddle’ followed by a mob of emus
00:18:07:00 sign ‘Bundara River’ in the Victorian Alpine Region
00:19:50:00 sign ‘Omeo’, Victoria, followed by an older style cattle truck travelling along a street and the Public Telegraph Office in the township