Shepherd's Creek West Branch

I've written before about the superb view from Launching Place Road into the valley on the north side of the town of Gembrook. The one Leo and Pat Buckley fell in love with at first sight when visiting their house as prospective buyers. Where I look across the paddock where the galahs and cockies love to feed to the houses and trees on the north side of the town; to the grazing paddocks, farmhouses, rusty sheds, and cultivated potato fields and copses of trees along the valley, which provide a patchwork of colour and shape. The valley extends several hundred metres westward then veers right and disappears to the north around another hill on the right side of the panorama.
The other day I counted 35 galahs and 12 cockies feeding. As I looked beyond towards the bottom of the V of the valley, which in the intermediate distance you can't see because the ground falls away sharply a little way down, it dawned on me there must be a spring rising about two or three hundred metres away where a cluster of black wattles lept up into view. I'd seen a dam in this valley from a vantage point behind the railway station on the Gembrook Hill, and I now realized it was fed by a spring that must be where I was looking. The amphitheatre view into the valley is enclosed by the ridge I'm standing on, the hill of Gembrook town on the left, the ridge in the distance along the top of which runs Ure Road to the north, and the hill on the right around which the valley escapes. So I'm at the top end of the valley, which is actually the one that runs through the rich farmland of Gembrook north between Ure Road and Launching Place Road. The original town, 'Silverwells', was located there before the railway came in 1901. By the time this spring meanders its way along the valley floor to Mrs. Busacca's place where I sometimes pick, a little way past 'Siverwells', it has grown into a creek, as she refers to it.
These things are obvious when you think about it, but how often do we? It's only by walking and watching that you think about it. It's not something that comes to mind while you drive a car thinking about other vehicles, or your destination, or your reason for driving.
A little further on my walk that day I met my friend Harry (post 21 June) and told him of my crop of honey. I said I'd drop in a couple of jars to his house later, which I did. He lives in Le Souef Rd., which runs off Launching Place Rd. along the north side of Gembrook town hill, or the south side of the valley. His house is on the low side with unobstructed views down to the valley floor and along it. Harry made us a cup of green tea and we drank it on his deck and discussed avocado, orange, and lime trees . From the deck you can see a series of dams all the way along the spring.
I said to Harry that it must be a good spring that rises somewhere up there in those trees. He said it is, he used to go up and watch it coming out of the ground. He went on to explain there's three springs very close here and this is the start of Shepherd's Creek West Branch which joins with the east branch somewhere downstream. It joins Woori Yallock Creek which flows into the Yarra River, which of course ends up in Port Phillip Bay.