Up to Marysville

We were off to Marysville which is at the bottom of the Yarra Ranges (National Park) where we would meet up with some friends of Natalie's, Mark & Tara and their 4 year old son Blake.  I was looking forward to meeting them as I'd heard how neat they were and one could tell that Natalie had a soft spot for Blake.  I was soon to find out why that was true.

There may be some of you who had heard about the bush fires that occurred in Victoria back in 2009 and February 7th has become known as Black Saturday in Australia.  As many as 400 bush fires were recorded on that day alone, 173 people died and 414 were injured as a result of the fires.

Marysville was one of two communities especially decimated by the fires - the other being Kinglake.  All but 14 of the 400 buildings in Marysville were destroyed by the fire and at least 45 people lost their lives.

Just over two years later one can still see the charred marks on the trees and the empty lots where buildings have yet to be replaced in Marysville and it has been a slow process I was told. I could somehow understand why some people chose not to rebuild after such a horrific disaster. 

But rebuilding was happening slowly and Mark, Natalie's friend, was playing an instrumental part.  You see Mark is an architect and a very passionate one and he was working with multiple people in Marysville designing houses and, in the case of Bruno Torfs, his gallery.

Bruno Torfs is a wonderful sculpture and painter.  He started his art and sculpture garden and had over 100 sculptures prior to the devastating fires.  He lost both his home and art gallery and was only able to save a handful of paintings but it was obvious after meeting him that he had not lost his spirit and passion.

I was hoping that I would be able to meet Bruno and was not disappointed when he came out to greet Mark, Tara and Blake.  You could easily see there was a deep friendship between them as Mark had worked with Bruno to help design his new home and art gallery which Bruno was building himself.  Bruno walked along with us through part of the sculpture garden chatting and pointing out this and that to us. 

Walking through the sculpture garden you were amazed at every twist and turn by yet another fantastic sculpture and I took a particular liking to two...one showing arms stretched out and the other with an open hand that had a fountain coming out of it.  Even though I tried I know I probably didn't get a picture of every sculpture there...I just know I didn't.

I also discovered that Blake had a talent not seen in typical 4 year olds...he is quite a photography for a little man and took some adorable pictures of his parents and also of all us with Bruno and his wife which Tara has so kindly given me permission to use here.  I hope Blake keeps taking pictures...he's got a knack for it and already has some of the vernacular down.  You just couldn't help laughing as he stood there with the camera saying 'work it...work it!!' 

As we were getting ready to leave Bruno came out and invited us in to see how far his gallery was coming along and it was fun to watch Mark and Bruno talk about the architectural design and what was going to be done here and there.  Both are so passionate about their respective careers it was just refreshing to see.

We also got to meet his wife Marleen and after a bit Blake started working his magic and took some group photos of all of us.  Quite a little man!!

Blake's group photo of us - so not bad for a 4 year old!!

As we said our goodbyes our day in Marysville wasn't quite done yet as we were off to nearby Steavenson Falls.  But I'll save that for another day.

Until then...wherever you are...have a great day!!

If you would like to see more pictures taken at Bruno's Sculpture Garden here is a link to that photo album on Picasa: Play slideshow

A special thank you to Tara for letting me use one of Blake's photos and to put a picture of Blake in the blog...you rock!!