Miraculous escape

By Kath Gannaway
EVERY bed and breakfast operator hopes their guests will leave the Yarra Valley spruiking about their “memorable experience”.
Marigold Smith and partner John Cuthbert, owners of Studio Evolving B&B in Wallace Parade, Healesville, have it in writing after their guests miraculously escaped being crushed by not one, but three, 100-year cypress pines.
“An extremely memorable weekend spent away from the city,” guest Sam Richards recorded in the visitor book.
“I concur,” added Dave English, another of the four young people booked in for a birthday getaway.
“My first real near-death experience made our stay even more memorable!”
Gale-force winds, which whipped the Yarra Valley the weekend before last, uprooted the massive trees sending them crashing down on the front garden at around 8.30am on Sunday morning 16 August.
The four-metre high root balls have become a drive-by attraction for hundreds of locals but it’s the view from the inside that elevates the response from “unbelievable” to a jaw-dropping “Oh my God!”
If there is a rational explanation as to why the trees fell to the left and the right of the cottage, leaving the building and its inhabitants intact, it’s not apparent to Ms Smith, or anyone else.
Ms Smith and Mr Cuthbert live on the property next door. The first they knew of the disaster was when one of the guests interrupted their “sleep in” with a knock on the front door.
They were both devastated and relieved when they saw the damage.
Four cars, belonging to the guests, were damaged, one totally crushed and trapped. The garden with its decades-old maples, magnolias and camellias which gave it its serene character was buried among the branches, and they faced a daunting clean-up job and further loss of income on top of the effect of the bushfires.
That no one was injured, and that the B&B – a building with an interesting history as a nunnery and retreat run by the Sisters of Mercy – was virtually undamaged, was an enormous relief however.
“It could have been such a different story,” Ms Smith said.
In what she described as a wonderful community effort, Ms Smith said all their neighbours came to help with the initial clean-up.
She said much of the timber will be suitable for milling and the branches will be used for firewood or mulch.
The future of the massive root systems is still up in the air.