The cars and chasms of Barrm Birrm

What to write next about Barrm Birrm, I asked myself. 

I decided to talk with Lydia and Ellena Best, my neighbours up the road, and arranged to drop in one Sunday afternoon.

Ellena Best on the left, Lydia Best on the right

They've walked a lot in Barrm Birrm - what did they like in there? Ellena said she liked looking out for animals. Did she have a particular part of Barrm Birrm that she liked? "Where all the crashed cars are," she said. What would she say to someone to get them interested in going to Barrm Birrm? 

"I would say, if you're really interested in wild animals, if you go there often, you might see some. And if you like insects and butterflies and stuff like that, they might be there."

"I think it's authentic, untouched, sort of, the way you'd expect bush to be," said Lydia. Her favourite places: the dam, and the place where the dirt has eroded and there's gaps you can walk through.

It was a fine afternoon. As we set off for BB, I didn't knowing quite what we would do and how interesting it would be for the girls. It was late autumn and not much was out. The land had that empty, dried-out, waiting-for-rain feeling.

I need not have worried. Lydia and Ellena's version of Barrm Birrm was pure thrill seeking, and I had to just hang on for the ride.

At first I was shocked and a little apprehensive. Then memory helped me out, memory of the back of North Balwyn, circa early 1960s, where the houses bled out to orchards, memory of the muddy and dangerous fun that was had at the boundary between suburbia and raw fields.


Fifty years later, I'm trying to be the responsible adult, "keeping an eye on things", but in truth, the girls are setting the pace. I'm back with damp smells and danger, making my way through a world larger than me.

We did indeed see a wallaby loping off at one point, but the afternoon was mostly about cars and gullies, and the afternoon light falling through the trees. Lydia, who has travelled through Barrm Birrm since she was a babe in arms, has the final word: 

"Just come and try it, and if you don't like it, that's fine, but I think you will."