Once around the Sugarloaf: The Transformation of a Victorian Landscape & the Story of its People, 300 pp., Bend of Islands Press,1992

Written by Mick Woiwod for the Christmas Hills Sesquicentennial, this book
details the district’s Aboriginal story and that of the selector families who settled the district between 1865 and the present day. Currently out of print, this volume is earmarked for republication by the Andrew Ross Museum some time around the middle of 2010.

Reminiscences of Andrew Ross, Mick Woiwod (editor), 65 pp.,Andrew Ross Museum, 1993
A 62 pp. compilation of the 42 essays that Andrew Ross wrote upon his return to England in 1876 detailing his interpretation of the first 13 years of his 25 years’ life as a major mover-and-shaker in Kangaroo Ground and surrounding districts

Kangaroo Ground: The Highland Taken, by Mick Woiwod,commissioned by Bruce Nixon, Tarcoola Press, 1996
This major history of Kangaroo Ground details the district’s story between 1841 and 1996, describing it as having been unique in the Yarra Valley in that its early settlers were all Scottish and its soils were more fertile than those of surrounding districts. Their soil gave them the sort of power that saw the then extensive Shire of Eltham governed from little Kangaroo Ground for a remarkable 69 years. The author describes the Kangaroo Ground landscape that these farmers worked in the early period as having been already significantly modified by Aboriginal fire-stick farming before their arrival.

The Last Cry, by Mick Woiwod, Tarcoola Press, 1997
The main theme of this 300 pp. historical novel is the story of its Wurundjeri people as it played out between 1847 and 1851 as the settler world moved out towards them in the Yarra Valley and took away their land. Thoroughly researched, its principal characters are Ngayuk, a young Wurundjeri initiate and Jaga Jaga, the rainbow warrior of the Yarra Valley who was determined to push the invaders back into the sea. The story opens in Kangaroo Ground and moves up and down the Yarra country and out into wider Victoria. Most all of its characters on the white side of the cultural divide are drawn from actual players in the interaction. Launched by senior elder, Joy Murphy, the novel includes maps and a glossary of 300 Wurundjeri terms to assist the reader with the action.

Against the Odds: Research Rural Fire Brigade 1950-2000, 128 pp. by Mick Woiwod, Para Press, 2000

The Research Fire Brigade established in 1950 with little more than an ancient World War II ex-Army Blitz-Wagon and a dozen or so knapsack-sprays and beaters, plus a ton of enthusiasm. With little more than this, its crew had set out in the 1962 bush fires to take on what was to prove the worst conflagration the Shire of Eltham had ever confronted. With its radio transmitter out of action, it lost contact with its base but nevertheless remained in the field for the better part of two days fighting the fire wherever it was able, all remaining brigade members understanding it to have been lost. Today, equipped with state of the art fire-fighting equipment, the brigade ranks among the most active in the region.

Tread Softly: You Tread on Dreams, 154 pp. by Mick Woiwod, Kangaroo Ground Cemetery Trust, 2001
The Kangaroo Ground Pioneer Cemetery is the oldest operating cemetery in the Yarra Valley, it having opened in 1851 when the people of Kangaroo Ground had been faced with the need to find a place to bury, the 5 year-old sister of John and Joseph Furphy. For its first 140 years, its local trust managed cemetery affairs on a shoestring budget knowing that their turn too would inevitably come to pay burial fees. Of latter years its trust has been more upfront and has transformed its five or so acres into something its community can justifiably feel pride.

Another View of Kangaroo Ground: Its Land and Its People, 54 pp. by Mick Woiwod,Andrew Ross Museum, 2002
Kangaroo Ground can be said to have two stories: that of its extensive geological formation and Aboriginal occupation and that of its later European settlement. Of the two, the former is by far the most gripping and by far the longest. It’s a story of belching volcanoes, land uplift and of wombat-like creatures the size of hippopotamuses. This book tells of how Aboriginal people transformed its landscape with fire and by doing so made it a safer place for themselves and ourselves to live.

Golden Days on the Caledonian Diggings, 66 pp. by Mick Woiwod, Andrew Ross Museum, 2005.
The discovery of gold in the Stringy-bark Forest a few miles east of Kangaroo Ground in 1854, brought substantial changes to the district. Very little had survived about day-to-day living on these goldfields until the museum was presented with the Diary of Thomas Young (1821-1910) who, between June 1865 and July 1866, had carted ore between the district’s various working mines and Nickinson’ crusher in Panton Hill. In between times Thomas wrote about daily life on the Caledonian field and of how he and his wife, Brigid, raised their large family in a basic bark-and-slab hut in a bush clearing.

Boat O’Craigo, 355 pp., by Mick Woiwod commissioned by Stephen Graham, Boat O’Craigo Vineyard, Kangaroo Ground, 2006
When news reached Scotland in 1852 that immense quantities of gold had been discovered in Victoria, Robert Graham hopped on board the first available ship and compiled a marvellous shipboard diary detailing the action along the way. Upon arrival in Melbourne, he headed direct for Bendigo but, much like the Kangaroo Ground farmers, he decided better money could be won with a bullock team carting supplies to the diggers. Later on, he himself became a successful farmer and thereby established a dynasty. Today, his great grandson, Stephen Graham is proprietor of ‘Boat O’Craigo Vineyard’ on Kangaroo Ground’s Garden Hill.

Auld Duncan’s Kangaroo Ground Tales, 86 pp., by Mick Woiwod, Andrew Ross Museum, 2007
In 2006, the Andrew Ross Museum, aware that few young children read history books, decided to produce an illustrated volume about Kangaroo Ground especially for them. Upon finding it near on impossible to write to young children, Mick chose instead to do so under the pseudonym ‘Auld Duncan’

Amongst the Old Folks, 136 pp., by Mick Woiwod, Rye Cemetery Trust, 2007
Following the success of Tread Softly: You Tread on Dreams, a request that he couldn’t refuse, came to Mick from his Rye Historical Society brother to do likewise for Rye for a companion volume.

The Christmas Hills Story: Once Around the Sugarloaf II, 259 pp. by Mick Woiwod, Andrew Ross Museum (forthcoming).
With Once Around the Sugarloaf now out of print for 15 years a decision was made by the museum in 2007 to produce a further edition, the main problem being that no digital copy of the first edition was any longer accessible. This saw a replacement pdf created through the good offices of Dean Mason of Enakt able to be revised, updated and substantially revised into A4 portrait format. All being well, this latest edition of The Christmas Hills Story should be available by May-June 2010

Hidden Country: The Forgotten Cultural Landscapes of the Middle Yarra,
69 pp. by Mick Woiwod, Andrew Ross Museum (forthcoming).
Most local history books open with the arrival of a district’s first farmer with his plough. generally in the early 1850s. But, what about the fifteen or so years before that first farmer arrived? What was happening here in the Yarra Valley then when a people who had seen it as home for thousands of years either died or were pushed aside. What role did the owners of the fifteen sheep and cattle stations between Heidelberg and Healesville play in their demise and how did their occupation of the land expose succeeding generations of settlers to the periodic onslaught of major bushfires?

Diary and Reminiscences of Andrew Ross, 300 pp., Tarcoola Press, (forthcoming)
These two nineteenth century works compiled by Andrew Ross have been described as the most important surviving primary source document detailing, not only Kangaroo Ground, but also the entire Yarra Valley. Soon after the museum established in 1993 it acquired a copy of Ross’s 300 page diary.

Then, in 1995 Bruce Nixon, the museum’s chairman commissioned the diary’s transcription into digital format, a document that over recent years has been further developed and slowly redesigned as a book. Bruce hopes to be in a position to launch this substantial magnum opus of Andrew Ross ready for publication in late 2010.

Vignettes of the Yarra Valley (forthcoming)

This 333 pp. collation consists of a thousand or so brief quotations collected by Mick Woiwod over many years whilst researching his many. In the main, the quotations relate to the Yarra Valley in the early period when both black and white people walked the land. Each quote is carefully cited as to publication, author, date and page number. Also included are vocabularies of Kulin terms and chronologies of events. Carefully gathered together under headings, this publication is also indexed for the reader to locate his chosen subjects. The intention is to reproduce the database in digital form for easier access.