Phil Gilmour and his partner, Carol Helman, have returned to the serene beauty of Tidbinbilla Mountain, and the homestead where they grew to love the bush.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mr Gilmour was the last owner, before the government resumed the land in 1988. He and Ms Helman resettled on the NSW north coast.
They were frustrated about having to leave, but ecologists Mr Gilmour and Ms Helman moved on. However, they stillembrace their old farm's creed: Nil Desperandum - never despair.
The name came from original owner and reclusive Irishman Henry Ffrench Gillman in 1896, and served successive families who battled the elements well.
The Gilmours were the third owners of the land. Kathleen Gilmour passed on Nil Desperandum to her son, Phil, in 1978. He and Ms Helman were there until 1988, when it was one of the territory's last remaining freehold blocks. They returned several times, including a memorable visit after the January 2003 fires which left the old place in scorched ruins.
"It was a shock," Mr Gilmour said. "One of the interesting aspects I thought was what might have happened if I were still here. That's by the by. It was very sad."
A structural engineer declared the place unsafe to rebuild. But Mr Gilmour trusted in the strength of the rammed earth walls. "We were glad to hear it was fixed up," he said.
Having rebuilt the homestead, the ACT Parks and Conservation Service offers it as overnight accommodation, and gave the couple a week's stay, for old time's sake.
In the original homesteada hole in the kitchen wall - cut by Mr Gilmour - let in light. These days solar power batteries light the three-room dwelling which has a pit toilet, kitchen with wood stove and camp stretcher beds.
On the back verandah, listening to the honeyeaters, rufous whistlers, pardalotes and lyre birds Mr Gilmour recounts his boyhood years around the cool, clear waters of Hurdle Creek.
"When Mum and I went up the gully we would look for lyrebirds, in particular male lyrebirds putting on a display on a mound," he said.
"Waking up on a winter's morning and the range would be covered in snow. That's something that sticks in my mind. I loved it. We used to do a bit of cross-country skiing, we skied up a firetrail."
Kathleen Gilmour died in October in a Canberra nursing home. She told her two daughters and her son she wanted no fuss or funeral. "Just go out to the farm and have a picnic," she had said, which they did.
Mrs Gilmour came from a settler family focussed on clearing the land, but resisted forestry attempts to expand pine plantations on the nearby mountain.Ms Helman said she was a conservationist ahead of her time.
"For me there are three aspects [to returning]," Mr Gilmour said.
"The personal memories, of which there are heaps; it makes you realise how insignificant you are, then there is the cultural significance; and on the ecologist side the regeneration of the forest."
As well as destroying all exotic and native vegetation, the 2003 fire opened a seed bank for revegetation, turning the fire ground into thick greenery and reinforcing the "never despair" creed.
In her studies into the original owner, the mysterious Irishman Henry Gillman, Ms Helman realised Gillman was an amalgamation of hers and Mr Gilmour's name, a form of regeneration to match that of the bush around them.
Stock fences fell down at Tidbinbilla homestead long ago. The cows escaped, the Gilmours' coloured sheep joined the neighbour's mob and foxes killed so many ducks and geese and guinea fowl that Mr Gilmour was dubbed "the fox farmer". Yet this couple saw no reason to despair near an old mountain that forever faces Canberra.
