[Wallace Clarke Home Movies: Reel 24]

Wallace Clarke was an amateur filmmaker who was particularly keen on capturing the Australian landscape from the 1960s to the 1990s. As well as Australian urban settings and some world travels, Wallace’s films focus on the many hiking and camping destinations that he visited.

Often carrying the credit, ‘A Walkabout Film’, Wallace’s movies indicate that he was part of a nature study and walking group called ‘The Walkabouters Club of Victoria Inc’. The ‘Walkabouters’ formed in 1968 as a result of a Council of Adult Education (CAE), Outback Study Tour to Central Australia’. Some of the attendees decided to start the Club in order to continue educative walks particularly around Victoria. The Club encouraged their resident artists and photographers to capture their activities.

The collection of Wallace’s films was donated to ACMI by his widow Gwenda Clarke and is shot on various formats, predominantly Standard 8mm and Super 8mm film.

This film captures a group walking trip by members of the ‘Walkabouters’ club to the Grampians (Gariwerd) in Victoria. It features the making of a ‘pit oven’ style barbeque and showcases the walking to be had by visitors through the many ravines and paths but also the grandeur of the sweeping views from what can seem like perilous pinnacles and lookouts.

Originally made on Super 8mm film.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:02:00 title cards ‘A Walkabout Film’, ‘The Dreaming Place’, ‘A WHC Film’
00:00:38:00 views of the Grampians range off in the distance
00:00:56:00 driving through a small township
00:02:51:00 creating a ‘pit oven’ by setting a fire in a deep hole in the ground
00:02:59:00 stones are thrown into the flames and then covered with pieces of terracotta tiles on which meat in aluminium foil is placed for cooking
00:03:38:00 the pit is covered with a piece of metal, hessian bags, stones and dirt
00:04:15:00 a woman climber is helped to the top of some rocks
00:06:10:00 cars driving along a dirt road in the bush
00:06:44:00 an example of the the beautiful rock of the Grampians
00:07:07:00 sign for ‘Forest Commision of Victoria’ ‘Camp of the Emu’s Foot’
00:07:15:00 Indigenous art on rock walls
00:09:48:00 a still river which runs under a wooden walk bridge among tall reeds
00:10:19:00 a fenced off shallow cavern possibly with Indigenous drawings on the rock
00:10:35:00 views of Indigenous drawings up close
00:11:07:00 driving through the bush
00:11:54:00 grey patchy granite rock of the Grampians
00:12:29:00 a lone walker stands on top of a high peak
00:15:25:00 walking through the bush
00:17:00:00 groups of kangaroos and emus
00:18:23:00 climbing a steep ravine
00:20:19:00 sitting on a precipice overlooking the dramatic scenery below
00:20:43:00 a large body of water, possibly Lake Fyans in the Grampians
00:23:22:00 walking along narrow pathways through the bush
00:24:14:00 sign ‘Grand Canyon’
00:25:43:00 sign ‘Echo Cave’ which appears to be painted on the rock itself
00:26:13:00 another sign ‘Pinnacle Street’ painted on a path rock
00:26:24:00 a rock worn away into the shape of a mushroom
00:26:49:00 sign ‘Silent Street’
00:28:12:00 walkers at a pinnacle lookout showing the fencing used for safety in the Grampians