The first in a series of Things I Was Told And Believed I’ll put them under the tag Things_Told
All of these were in the late 60s, so I was 8 or 9.
Lake Daylesford is Bottomless
My nanna told me that. It scared the carp of out me. I’d look at the cold, dark waters and ponder the fathomless depths. It was years later I found out it was a man-made lake. I even saw pictures of the old market gardens in the (about to be flooded) valley. I think she probably meant no-one had ever got to the bottom of the lake.
The swans on the Lake can kill you
And how. The adult swans on Lake Daylesford were very protective of their babies. If you were near the shore and the swans were on the water, the adult swan would stare at you. They could hypnotise you! After they had you mesmerised, they would slowly swim backwards, away from the shore. You – powerless and in their grasp – would follow them and walk towards them. Thus to drown in the bottomless Lake.
Back then the lakeside track was unmade in parts and would descend very close the water’s edge. Boy would I scurry past the evil swans.
Three children wandered off and died about 10 years ago
Don’t forget, this was the 60s. It was told to us as a cautionary tale on getting lost in the bush. Sadly this one was true. But – as I found out years later – it happened about 100 years before the 1960s. There’s now a memorial walk to remember this terrible incident.