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Killing Hidey
by djcache
Named using a play on words after a famous (recently) pop band of the last few years who's members grew up in this town. Ella Hooper, who grew up here, leads the group Killing Heidi who were discovered at the town's arts festival in 1996 and shot to fame after airplay by Triple J. The band played regularly in Shepparton's Yahoo Bar until they outgrew it.
Killing Heidi
Interestingly, since placing this cache I have also learnt that the towns relationship with Australian music goes back further than this. The 80's rock band "The Church" named a song after the town. The track was released on the 1984 EP "Persia" and the keyboard player was Craig Hooper. No relation to Ella of Killing Heidi (but an interesting coincidence.) Craig was a guest in "The Church" at the time but was a member of the Mullanes, who went on to become Crowded House.
The town is often referred to as the Town of Flowers as all the major street names are named for flowers popular at the time the town was settled.
It lays claim that it is the oldest surveyed inland town in Australia and was surveyed originally by the first known European to travel the area, Major Mitchell (who has a cockatoo named after him.) In 1836 he made camp at a place he called Violet Ponds after wild violets which were in flower.
In 1839 the government put on sale lots in a village at Violet Creek. They hoped that the buyers would develop "Houses of Entertainment" to serve the increasing traffic between Port Phillip (now Melbourne) and Yass in NSW. Had this happened the town would have been one of the earliest places of settlement in Victoria but noone undertook the desired building until the Royal Mail Hotel was opened in 1846. The town prospered over the following century supplying all who passed through on the Melbourne Sydney land route and later railway line, and those rushing to make their fortune in gold in the North East Victoria and to Bendigo's gold fields.
The other significant event Violet Town is infamous for occurred in 1969 near the very spot you are standing at GZ. After the driver had suffered a cardiac arrest at the controls the Southern Aurora passenger train collided head on with a freight train here where the dual rails are. They had been supposed to pass side by side. A set of photos by Kenneth Williams who was a passenger with a camera at the time of the incident and a brief description can be seen here. Many of the Ambulance Officers in the photo came from my home branch at Shepparton, and one of the attending officers is still employed there with me.
Southern Aurora Disaster, Violet Town, 1969
(Pic © Kenneth Williams)
From Emergency Management Australia's website:
"The driver of the 'Southern Aurora' train suffered a heart attack & died at the controls. The Aurora then collided head-on with a goods train, resulting in the deaths of 8 passengers. Four carriages of the Aurora were telescoped together and ended up lying on top of the engine. Explosions in the power van caused fires in seven of the Aurora carriages after the crash. The coroner found, from comparing speed charts with earlier trips, that the driver had been either dead or in a coma for at least the last 10 km before the crash.
As a result of this crash, more stringent medical testing was introduced for drivers, and other safety measures introduced to prevent future accidents."
It became a sleepy hollow finally in the late 1980's when bypassed by the Hume Freeway. It now has a few quaint old buildings and churches, a renowned cleanskin wine shop, antique shop, and a Violet coloured cafe that makes the greatest coffee in the district. Oh, and the op shop with the tree coming in the back window...
It also has a famous bush market on the second Saturday of every month.
Hope you enjoy poking around here. We do.
djcache
PS This cache is now a traditional. The cache was upsized from a micro 29 Oct 06. The original logs are in a film container in the cache. Please do not remove the original logs.
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