Behind Bars Over The Border

Leaving south australia we headed into the Grampians national park for a few days surrounded by green after miles and miles of burnt yellow grass...

We planned to climb a few peaks called Mt. Sturgeon and Mt. Abrupt both about 800 meters high. As we approached the park you could see them sticking up into the horizon.

Sturgeon was about 7km return and took us just over an hour - amazing views from the top.

It was then only about 10 in the morning so we decided to crack on with Mt. Abrupt straight away! A similar distance but much steeper, but again with rewarding views and refreshing winds at the top.

Exercise class over for the day we drove around the rest of the park exploring all the historical aboriginal sites that have been found over the years. Each one has a spiritual story to tell and as you'll see from below are better protected than he crown jewels!

We'd read up about a lunatic asylum built not far from the Grampians in the town of Ararat called Aradale. It was one of the largest in australia and was built off the back of the gold rush when tens of thousands of people flocked to the area, many of whome did well but equally many of whom did not so well out of all the digging. The asylum soon began attracting patients from all over australia, many of whome were simply disabled with down syndrome, or women suffering post natal depression. Back in the 1800's these medical conditions were not deiscovered yet and so these people suffered horrible treatments being mistaken for lunatics. We heard one horrrible story of a russian family who arrived in Sydney on a boat. The mother got seperated from her husband and 3 kids at the dockside. She went to the police and authoriteis to say she'd lost her family and because she was quite histerical and couldnt speak a word of the english they transported her all the way from sydeny to the asylum in Ararat victori and locked her up.

The picture below is not one we took. You cant actually go to the place unless on a special tour because its in such a dangerous condition, but parts at the back are still used for medical teachings. Its a stunning looking building though.

                     

As Aradale began to get full the mix of patients became more complex. A few miles away in the town of Ararat was a county jail standing since 1860. In the early 1900's as the Aradale asylums population began to get more complex they acquired the prison, calling it J Ward, to house those who were Criminally Insane and considered dangerous.

This is somewhere you can visit, and fascinated by what went on in this town thats exactly what we did. A spooky place where prisoners and criminally insane people were kept. People who committed some awful crimes. Those with an illness were treated and kept in one part of the prison and those who were considered sane kept in much worse condtions. Our guide was a bloke called David, who with a group of volunteers runs tours round the prison. There was only Nay and I on our tour so we bombarded him with questions and he stunned us with stories. One of the most interesting 2 hours I've ever had. 

A prisoner was housed here called Bill Wallace and his is a fascinating story. At around 40 he was having breakfast in Melbourne. To blokes were smoking behind him. He asked them to stop. They refused, and so he shot them both in their chairs and finished his breakfast. He was sent to this prison for the rest of his life. He never said a single word to a doctor so they never worked out if he was sane or not. Ironically he became the biggest known chain smoker in the prisons history. He always wore a three piece suit every day. When he reached 100 the locals campaigned for his release due to his age. It was granted, but when they opened the door to let him out he refused to leave and signed himself back in. After 64 years in the prison at the age of 103, still standing at 6 ft 4 and over 15 stone he was transferred from he prison to the geriatric ward of the lunatic asylum at Aradale. After a few weeks there whilst eating a meal one of the other old guys reached for the last piece of bread. Bill grabbed a fork and stabbed it through this blokes hand and pinned it to the table. He died at 104 and left a fortune of over half a million dollars behind which no one ever claimed so the government took it. He never had a single letter or visit from anyone.

I don't like smoking either, PARTICULARLY WHEN IM HAVING BREAKFAST! If anyone interrupted my hash browns with a puff of smoke i'd shoot them too. What a story. Just makes me want to know more...