Third bit from the right

Some view! Mt Buffalo early on a cold Sunday morning, clouds filling the Ovens valley and the sun shining brilliantly up on the plateau. As if that wasn’t enough excitement, the Mt Buffalo Chalet clearing auction was about to get underway.

The first I knew about the clearing auction was from an article in The Age last month. I’ve since done a bit more reading. The chalet has had an interesting history. It dates back to 1910 and was ‘the epitome of luxury’ apparently (though the guests who scored rooms with no heating probably wouldn’t have agreed). It closed in 2007 after it came close to being destroyed by the bushfires that took out large parts of the national park in December 2006-January 2007.

The Victorian government is about to restore sections of the chalet complex, retaining the original building and pulling down later additions. The National Trust doesn’t seem too pleased about the demolition, but when you see the buildings up close you wonder if there could be enough Polyfilla in the Ovens valley to fix all those rotting windows.

The auction date coincided with the Bright Autumn Festival and we spent most of the Saturday wandering about the town looking at market stalls and hanging about for the all-important gala parade. (Confession: we didn’t stay around long enough to work out what the parade’s theme was. Sorry.)

The 600 or so items being auctioned on the Sunday were spread out across the old cafe, the garages and the stables. In the cafe, tables were covered in lamps, electrical equipment, chalet staff clothing, chalkboards, stuffed toys, crockery, cutlery etc. etc. Item 106 was made up of boxes and boxes of ‘assorted building fittings (door handles, hinges etc.)’ – as well as the table it was all sitting on. Here are a few photos from the auctioneer’s (Dickens) website to give you an idea of what was on offer. (The Buffy Buffalo mascot suit sold for $90 and the person who bought it was planning on wearing it to the Bright pub that night.)

The auction started at 9:00 am with a briefing. The most significant (and entertaining) rule was that this was a clearing auction and everything had to go; if an item didn’t sell it would be bundled in with the next item on the list for ‘free’. Given the massive amount of trash/treasure up for grabs, the potential for buyers to end up with more headaches than they’d bargained for was huge.

Items 1 and 2 didn’t disappoint: When no-one bid on the clapped-out piano, the unlucky person who bought the bookshelf with all books ‘won’ the piano as well. The bar fridges and kettles weren’t selling either until one woman bid $5 and scored the backlog of 12 fridges and 60 kettles. God, it was funny (for some of us).

The real action for me was in the bus garage where all the furniture items were stored. So many potential restoration projects but so little room in the back of the car!

At this stage we’d bought nothing and were worrying that the dealers and all the mad people just buying stuff because it was there would outbid us every time. But we got of the mark with item 449 – ‘Bench height single cupboard & small coffee table’. $30. And just look at all the amazing freebies that were inside the cupboard. Anyone want a box of 86 plumbing escutcheons?

Once we’d paid our money and packed the car we took off. It was so cold up on the mountain I was running out of extra clothes to wear, and we couldn’t fit anything else in the boot anyway.

The cupboard has obviously been knocked around quite a bit over the years. It was being used out in the sheds, according to the park rangers we spoke to. But they reckon it’s an original bit of chalet furniture, most of which was commissioned especially for the place.

So far, I’ve scrubbed the inside using my excellent furniture cleaner. Next I’ll be stripping the varnish off the outside and sanding and oiling it. More to come on that later.