Neil Smith

The Story of Fairy Hills and Eagle Mountain Notebook for Charli 2 Neil Smith

Back in 1940 my mother set out on foot (and by train) for a new life at the end of the line. I was two and my new brother was newly born. So our cosy inner city house was no longer suitable for a family. The story goes that my trusting mother caught the train from North Fitzroy, inner Melbourne, to the end of the line as it was then. That was Darebin station. She alighted onto the lonely station and set off following her instincts, across vacant fields, with toddler me and baby Colin in tow. She came to a lone standing Californian bungalow in the middle of empty paddocks, for rent. She took it on the spot and we moved in soon after. This, as fate would have it, was the middle of a world of wilderness in the suburbs, where Darebin Creek meets Yarra River, also known as Fairy Hills. This is the story of how we lived in this magical place for the next 14 years. Read of amazing lives and wondrous happenings as this lonely part of the world took off to become my world of river and creek and wilderness so unexpected at the time. This story has been written for my beautiful 16 year-old granddaughter.