ACCESS

Tikalara Park is located where the Mullum Mullum Creek and the Yarra River join. It forms part of the Yarra Valley Parklands on Crown Land managed by Parks Victoria (which supports the Mullum Mullum/Main Yarra Trail) and Manningham freehold land parcels.  

 

Generally Tikalara can be defined as the area north of Websters Road and between Mullum Mullum Creek/Yarra River to the west and Blackburn Road to the east. 

 

The reserve provides flora and fauna, sport, informal recreation, linear park and unstructured nature play.

 

FEATURES

• The Pontville Historic Homestead

• Eastern Grey Kangaroos

• Remains of excavations used for constuction of Pontville Homestead

• The Observation Platform on the Main Yarra Trail, and the Information Board

• Confluence of the Mullum Mullum Creek and Yarra

• Boardwalk on Main Yarra Trail

 

PONTVILLE

Pontville is historically and aesthetically significant amongst the early towns near Melbourne, as its landscape contributes to the greater understanding of 1840s agricultural and garden history, as well as for containing numerous relics of aboriginal life. The survival of its formal garden terracing and the presence Hawthorn hedgerows, used for fencing, is unusual.

 

The original Homtead was built in 1846 and later extended.

 

The property itself (now subdivided) has several remnant plantings of the colonial era, including Himalayan Cypress, Black Mulberry and willow trees and the integrity of ancient scar trees, ancestral camping sites and other spirit places of the Wurundjeri aborigines, which was respected by the Newman family. They can be observed in their original form along the trail systems, at the Tikalara ("meeting place") plains tract of the Mullum-Mullum Creek.

 

Pontville is archaeologically important for the below ground remains inherent in the location of, and the material contained within the archaeological deposits associated with Newman's turf hut and the subsequent homestead building, cottage, associated farm and rubbish deposits. The structures, deposits and associated artefacts are important for their potential to provide an understanding of the conditions in which a squatting family lived in the earliest days of the Port Phillip settlement.

 

Public access to the property is not permitted,  but group visits may be arranged. The Homestead entrance road leads off the Main Yarra Trail, and may be seen from the Trail.