UMPHERSTON GARDEN: MT GAMBIER

They might just as well be known as the hanging gardens of Mount Gambier, with great blankets of ivy draping the walls of this massive crater. Throughout the State's southeast sinkholes like this are common, with the underground aquifer or water table eating away at the limestone. Often they were used as rubbish tips, but one civic minded Scot thought this impressive cavity could be made into so much more.

"The Gardens were developed by James Umpherston at his property known as the Caves. It was here that he set about creating an ornate Victorian Garden and from what remains, it's obvious that he succeeded".

Umpherston was a local grazier who, in his retirement, began the unending task of sculpting a garden, with a series of terraces down to a small lake below. This was to be a summer retreat for Mount Gambier's high society, and back in the late 1880's James would take the family out for a sail on his sunken lake. But over time Umpherston's beloved garden fell on hard times. The terraced flower beds making way for local rubbish until Ken Norton and the workers from the nearby sawmill finally again set about unearthing James Umpherston's dream.

"We only came into it about thirty years ago when it was in a very dilapidated state, almost a rubbish dump. When we started we found the hole completely covered with dead trees wild creepers and it was quite amazing, as we removed those we found the terraces that Umpherstone had built underneath that rubbish, and it encouraged us to keep going from there".

And so they worked on, planting an array of different plants. Now the hydrangeas are a feature, providing a splash of colour where old James Umpherston's lake used to be. But the success of Ken and his team, has a lot to do with simple trial and error. Some things just didn't take, not because of poor soil or too much shade, but these little guys who took a shine to pretty much everything apart from the hydrangeas and the ivy. At first they tried to move them on, to a park surrounding the Blue Lake, but within a couple of days they were back.

"We realise that they belong here, and we have learnt to live with them from that day on, and the people as the lights have developed, people have gradually come more and more of a night, and it's great to hear them say I was here last night or I was here today and I'm coming back to have a look tonight".

With the lights on, and the food out, soon the locals are hanging out for a feed.

"How old would this one be?"

"I don't know, I'm only guessing, a couple of months, a little older perhaps".

"Here she comes".

"Down you come, not my finger remember".

It's the same every night, and as Ken Norton readily confesses, his little possum paradise is now home to about thirty of the most finicky nocturnal diners on the Limestone Coast. Anything bread, biscuits out of my room, any sort of fruit they love strawberries.

"Do they like strawberries?"

"And later of a night they start to get quite fussy, and people offer a bit of that and they'll let that to if someone comes along and offers a bit of strawberry".

And as I found, they're a bit partial to Ken's scotchfinger biscuits, as this pied piper of the possums creates a magical experience for visitors old and young alike.

"We keep working quite happily just because of the comments that the people make, and you see the children enjoy the possums and its not hard".

Umherston Cave is the Jubilee Highway out of Mount Gambier to Melbourne and is open day and night and it's free. For more information email info@postcards-sa.com.au