Reflecting together

Hundreds of people gathered in Yarra Glen’s McKenzie Reserve to mark 10 years since Black Saturday struck the town and so many others. Yarra Ranges Council hosted the commemorative service for its residents on Thursday 7 February. The threat of lightning and rain forced the crowd inside the Yarra Glen Memorial Hall. Mayor Tony Stevenson […]

This gallery has 8 images.

The accidental author

Melanie Harris-Brady barely escaped the Kinglake fires on Black Saturday and didn’t talk about it for nine and a half years. Then, for reasons she is not entirely sure of, she sat down and in the space of a few hours thousands of words poured out that formed the basis for her recently published book, […]

This gallery has 3 images.

Disaster brought out our best

CFA firefighter and photographer Keith Pakenham has been reflecting on the 2009 bushfires – not just Black Saturday. Fires were already burning at Churchill and Callignee in the Gippsland area when the devastating blazes started on 7 February, he said. That’s where the famous image of the koala drinking from a firefighter’s water bottle came […]

This gallery has 2 images.

A happy place to be

On the 10th of March 2009 at the Yarra Centre,13 people played the first games of the Yarra Junction Keenagers Table Tennis Group, but only 11 paid the twenty cent surcharge for coffee and biscuits. When asked how it started, group organiser Egon Fink reached for his notebook, where he has every detail recorded for […]

This gallery has 3 images.

Sandra’s final chapter

Sandra Hamnett was just after some job interview practice when she applied to work at Yarra Junction Library 35 years ago. “I hadn’t gone for a job interview for 20 years. I had young children,” she said. “I wasn’t looking for work, I thought ‘it’s time I went for a job application and kept those […]

This gallery has 2 images.

Clean and green ink

While government and business leaders dither on sustainability, Lilly Parker has put her principles first and taken action by opening a carbon neutral tattoo studio in Healesville. The studio, Golden Goose, combines two very important elements of her life, a love of art and a passion for reducing the world’s carbon footprint. “As a person […]

This gallery has 2 images.

Your first stop before buying a home. View the whole picture.