Wattle Park Appreciation Group

25/04/2026

" They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them "

18/12/2025

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in 2026!

21/11/2025

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/all-aboard-wattle-park-trams-heritage-site

Wattle Park’s iconic heritage tram picnic shelters have been transformed into a vibrant outdoor space thanks to the Allan Labor Government. Minister for Environment Steve Dimopoulos today announced the opening of the site, following the completion of the upgrades, including a new ceremonial space,...

21/11/2025

20/04/2025

Wishing all friends of Wattle Park a safe and peaceful Easter !

10/04/2025

Listen to Barry (Humphries) recite Wattle Park Blues here:
Wattle Park Blues, a poem
For the launching of the show At Least You Can Say You've Seen It in Melbourne [August -, 1974] - Barry hired a tram and invited the press on a picnic to celebrate the bursting of the wattle, the Australian harbinger of spring. Each had to wear something as yellow as wattle, and as the tram weaved through Camberwell Junction yellow drinks were served - pernod, advocaat and sherry. At lunch in the Wattle Park chalet, the journalists were served creamed sweetcorn, curried egg and daffodil-yellow jellied trifle, after which Humphries recited his Betjemanesque poem 'Wattle Park Blues'.

Peter Coleman

Wattle Park is a public park in Melbourne, Australia. It is located in the suburb of Burwood within the City of Whitehorse, approximately 13 km east of Melbourne's CBD. The Wattle Park Chalet was built in 1928 as a tea-house and function venue. It is an elegant structure in the rustic Tudor style of English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Steve Vizard tweeted on 22 April 2023: 'Nightnight Barry Humphries. The most unforgettably subversive, wicked, insightful, and wildly hilarious of them all. Travel well friend on your final tram trip to that great Wattle Park in the sky. “Only half a pint today Milko. Money under brick. PS Nothing tomorrow.”'

The poem was read by BH's daughter Tessa at the State Memorial for Barry Humphries AC CBE which was held at the Sydney Opera House at 11am on Friday 15 December 2023.

Barry Humphries and Melbourne

10/04/2025

Wattle Park Blues (the link shows some photos from 2013)

Back in the wattled thirties
Before the world went dark,
They built this noble chalet
On the crest of Wattle Park.
The trammies on their days off
Came for Devonshire teas,
And outside the kiddies seesawed
With mercurochromy knees.
A graveyard for old cable trams
Lay below us in the valley,
Where we played till creamy soda time
And dixies in the chalet.
How we envied the conductor
On the tram on which we'd come.
With his cubes of coloured tickets,
Nippled rubber on his thumb.
Loved his uniform of navy serge,
Scarlet piping on lapel;
Wished we could say, Move down the car,
And tug that leather bell.
Above us in the giant gums
Were bird houses built on high,
Little chalets for the maggies,
Tudor surburbs in the sky.
We grew older, came less often,
To watch the wattles burst here,
Though Geoff, Jeanette and Alison
Each had their twenty-firsts here;
But we'd outgrown creamy sodas,
Were spottier - and thirstier.

We drank Pimms and puffed on Garricks,
Hugged gardenia'd girlfriends hard,
As we parked our mothers' cars by night
Along the Boulevard,
And Wattle Park was quite forgotten
And the trams' metallic rumble.
Dear to the heart of childhood,
Like the taste of Violet Crumble.
And so dear friends and strangers
I presume to be your guide
To the terminus of memory
I have shouted you a ride.
To the place where me and Colin
And a thousand kiddies more
Picnicked underneath the pollen
In the days before the War.
Today the trees seem sparser
The old cable trams have gone,
But they still serve in the chalet
Melbourne's finest buttered scone.

10/04/2025

An amendment to Planning Application P34848 has been lodged with Heritage Victoria with regard to the ongoing works at Wattle Park.
"WATTLE PARK
The heritage trams are being replaced, following vandalism. Work has commenced and is expected to be complete in mid-2025, subject to on-ground and construction industry conditions.
Two replacement trams were supplied by VicTrack in December 2024 and are currently being refurbished in the Bendigo Tramways Heritage Rail Workshop.
A ceremonial space is being planned with Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation and is expected to be complete in 2025."
You can send any thoughts about the whole project to:
[email protected]

We are building a new all-abilities playscape, a 3.25 km running and walking track and making picnic area upgrades at Wattle Park thanks to a $4.3 million investment from the Victorian Government.