The Mallee

Introducing The Mallee

The Mallee takes its name from the mallee scrub that once covered the region. Mallee gums are canny desert survivors – 1000-year-old root systems are not uncommon – and for the Aborigines the region yielded plentiful food. The sky seems vast as you drive through the area, surrounded by horizon, dead-flat semi-arid land and twisted mallee scrub. The Mallee includes the one genuinely empty part of the state (wilderness known as ‘Sunset Country’) and the sense of isolation and expanse is exhilarating – you don’t have to visit central Australia to get a taste of the outback.

The farmers of this district have been doing it hard after years of drought, and consequently many towns are also failing. In just 150 years many small towns in this region have been founded, prospered, peaked and now lie all but abandoned, decaying in the mallee scrub. As you blast up the Sunraysia Hwy, through towns like Speed and Tempy, with their massive grain silos standing idle beside the railway tracks, you can’t help but feel there’s something sad and broken about this area.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009