Within a place of love, sorrow and salvation, where Elwood’s Swamp met St Kilda’s Red Bluff, two ardent women, Agnes Simmons and Geraldine Minet, challenged providence and geology. In the days of Suffrage and Spiritualism, these two daring Theosophists sought to bring prosperity to Colonial Victoria of the 1890s in the midst of the depression. Their engine, ‘Helena’, was fired up to bore deeper for their black diamonds than any other coal exploration in the world! Their Spirit World prophecies plummeted to earth, revealing through cold hard facts and bitter disappointment that the only flawless diamonds of their quest lay withing their own altruism. It happened here, by Typhus Road, shadowed by Slaughter Yard Creek, on its swamp bound journey to the restless sea.

Elwood local historian and author, Isaac Hermann has frequented Point Ormond for near to six decades savoring its silence, taking in its views and more recently giving voice to its rich and diverse stories. Author of Kingsley, Our House & Home, A History of the Elwood and St Kilda Neighbourhood Learning Centre, and A Labour of Love, the Public Works of Carlo Catani, Victoria 1876 -1918.

Heather is a Local Historian, President of the Koo Wee Rup Swamp Historical Society and Secretary of the South Eastern Historical Association. A Librarian for over 40 years and the Local History Librarian at Casey Cardinia Libraries from 2005 – 2021, Heather is passionate about local history and is the author of three blogs – Koo Wee Rup Swamp History, Victoria’s Past: Rescued and Retold, and Carlo Catani, a tribute to Victoria’s Engineer-in-Chief.