The Romantic and the Wild: Picnic at Hanging Rock
Appleyard College, with its starched Victorian uniforms, rigid rules, and English gardens, feels like a small slice of Britain transplanted into the Australian wilderness. It is a place where order and control reign, a microcosm of the settler mindset, where everything—whether unruly girls or untamed nature—must be neatly contained. The film’s opening scenes are striking in their portrayal of this: young girls tightening corsets, pressing delicate flowers, and brushing their hair with precision, as if maintaining these rituals of European propriety can somehow protect them from the chaos of the world beyond the school’s gates. Even their planned excursion to Hanging Rock feels steeped in tradition, though it carries a hint of adventure, as they prepare to meet something far older and far wiser than any rule-bound society.
As the girls journey to the rock on St Valentine’s Day, the romance of the setting cannot be missed. The day itself is steeped with intimacy—symbols of love, connection, and desire linger in the air, but this time, the object of affection is not another person. The landscape itself is cast in a seductive light, its ancient stones described as having been dormant, “waiting just for us.” There is an allure in the Australian wilderness, something mysterious and magnetic that draws the girls in, inviting them into a strange, otherworldly communion.
Yet, beneath the beauty and the romance, there is something about the land that remains beyond their grasp. The Australian bush resists these European ideals of control and understanding. It is not a landscape that can be tamed or known in the way the English had hoped. The wilderness doesn’t yield to their neat categorisations; it remains enigmatic, unknowable, defying their attempts to impose order upon it.
In the end, Picnic at Hanging Rock is more than just a story of missing girls—it is a meditation on the impossibility of truly taming this wild, ancient land. Through its romantic imagery and eerie silences, the film invites us to question the narratives of control and conquest, to see that there is a wildness in the Australian landscape that resists not just colonisation, but even comprehension. It is this wildness that ultimately shapes the story, leaving us with a sense of unease, a feeling that the land itself holds its own secrets, secrets we will never fully know.
The Rock and I
The Macedon Ranges have been woven into my life since I was 13, when I first moved to Victoria. Back then, the rock stood like a shadowy figure on the edge of my understanding, a place both feared and admired—a presence we spoke of in hushed, reverent tones.
By the time I was 22, I found myself celebrating my birthday with a hike around Hanging Rock, as if I could somehow unlock its secrets by walking its ancient paths. I remember the crisp air, the eerie stillness that clung to the trees, and the weight of the stories I had carried with me since childhood. At school, around campfires, and at Girl Guide gatherings, we heard tales of the Australian bush, thick with mystery. Elders in our community passed down these stories with knowing glances, and for me, Picnic at Hanging Rock was at the heart of it all—its legend intertwined with the landscape, filling our imaginations with visions of girls vanishing into thin air, lost to time.
The rock was more than just a physical place. It was a symbol, a reminder of the wildness that lay just beyond the safety of our homes. We learned that the bush was both beautiful and dangerous, a force beyond our control—one that could swallow anyone who dared try to master it. But as I grew older, it became clear that these stories were shaped by a particular gaze, one that fixated on white experiences. The myths that surrounded Hanging Rock were always about settlers, explorers, and schoolgirls like Miranda—white children who went missing in the wilderness, reinforcing a narrative of fear and loss that was distinctly colonial.
I’ve walked these trails and felt the pull of the place, but the land is not unknowable. It isn’t a blank slate onto which we project our fears of disappearance. There are deeper stories here, ones that existed long before our myths of vanished girls.
Questioning the Myths We Tell
I began to question why stories like these—about the vanishing of white settler children—were so central to our national imaginations. Why did we cling so tightly to these tales, while the deeper, more violent history of the land remained in shadow? The suffering of Indigenous people, the dispossession, the traumas—why were these stories so often downplayed or outright ignored?
The more I explored, the clearer it became: these myths of white disappearance are a convenient distraction, a way to avoid confronting the uncomfortable truths of colonisation. The focus on white children disappearing into the bush obscures the much more devastating reality—the erasure of Indigenous lives, the violence enacted on this land, and the silencing of those histories in favour of more palatable, more "acceptable" myths.
#MirandaMustGo
Recently, while reading White Vanishing: Rethinking Australia’s Lost-in-the-Bush Myth by Elspeth Tilley for university, I found myself reflecting on how I, too, had romanticised places like Hanging Rock. It’s not wrong to feel a sense of awe in these landscapes, but there’s a danger in that awe when it isn’t accompanied by an understanding of the land’s true history. When we muse, play, or create in these spaces without acknowledging the stories and cultures that have long existed here, we risk continuing the cycle of erasure.
That’s when I came across Amyl Spiers’ campaign, #MirandaMustGo. Her work, like a mirror held up to my own reflections, challenges the very heart of Picnic at Hanging Rock and the myth of white vanishing it perpetuates. Spiers calls for us to reconsider our fixation on figures like Miranda—the fragile, innocent white schoolgirl lost to the wilderness—and instead focus on “real losses and destruction to country”.
Here she writes:
Since the novel’s publication in 1967, Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, and its story of the inexplicable disappearance of schoolgirls and their teacher in 1900, has engrossed the Australian public and pervaded the settler imaginary. For over fifty years, associations with the fictional vanishing of white women have persistently troubled and haunted visitors to Hanging Rock. Each year, countless tourists climb the rock, calling out for the main character ‘Miranda’, and retell the story of her loss. It’s time to end this habit. Let’s ask ourselves:
Why do we obsessively retell a myth of white vanishing?
Why don’t we cast as much attention to the actual losses and traumas that took place at the rock?
Whose absences matter?
The #MirandaMustGo campaign has sparked a significant reevaluation of the heritage information and narratives surrounding Hanging Rock. Since its launch, all three First Peoples groups from the region—Taungurung, Djaara, and Wurundjeri—have been increasingly consulted, and their perspectives on the Rock are now being sought more frequently. The media generated by the campaign has become a resource for those seeking a deeper understanding of the site’s colonial and Indigenous histories. This website aims to continue supporting and encouraging learning about Hanging Rock, honoring both its cultural significance and complex past.
You can delve into your own research here:
https://mirandamustgo.com.au
Rewriting History
I recently finished bingeing the Picnic at Hanging Rock television series for what feels like the hundredth time. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I truly love this adaptation and what it brings to the haunting mythos of Hanging Rock. Unlike earlier versions, this series adds new layers of complexity to the story, particularly in how it represents the land and its deep, often neglected, history. Alike to the beauty in Weir’s film, the series captures the eerie and hypnotic beauty of the rock, amplifying its role as both a physical and psychological force.
What makes this series stand out is its inclusion of Indigenous characters and actors, such as Marion (played by Madeleine Madden), Tom (Mark Coles Smith), and Tracker Joe (Bruce R. Carter). Their presence is not merely tokenistic; rather, these characters offer critical commentary on the land’s ancestral ties and provide a much-needed Indigenous perspective on the girls' mysterious disappearance.
What Now?
We can still ascend the ancient monolith wearing white frocks and corsets, screaming for Miranda’s return, rolling down our stockings and revelling in the mystery of Picnic at Hanging Rock. We can continue to be captivated by its beauty and allure, to indulge in the haunting atmosphere that draws us back time and again. But first, we must recognise the fuller story that lies beneath the myth.
Before we romanticise, let's educate ourselves and honour the lands on which we walk—lands that were never ceded. Hanging Rock is not just a place of the ghostly disappearance of white schoolgirls, but a site with deep, sacred significance for the Indigenous peoples who have been its caretakers for millennia.
My Art
The first time I shared my writing in public, it was a poem about Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay’s haunting novel. I remember the moment vividly—the slight tremble in my hands, the murmur of the audience, and the way my words seemed to hang in the air, much like the lingering mysteries of the story itself:
February 14th, 1900.
A velvet morning.
Botticelli angels dancing in the sunlight,
Hair golden and brazen in the wind.
Stockings rolled and bodies offered up to Venus,
After sleeping under a Leo moon.
Fallen eucalyptus leaves kiss the soles of our feet,
As we run across the grass and climb into wooden seats.
The young freight carried by cart draws near,
Towards an ancient place that has laid dormant, waiting… just for us.
Millions of years ago there was a hunger, a deep growling.
Magma poured out through a vent and congealed into place.
Black skies and trees were covered in a thick ash.
But we are not afraid of such darkness, today.
Let us congregate below the altar of the monolith,
Lay down our cream gloves and sun hats.
Fall to our knees, nestled under foliage and bark.
For we are at liberty to the earth around us.
We eat luncheon under the sheoak and silver banksia,
Our crumbs carried away by poisonous ants,
Ankles at mercy to venomous snakes.
Ears ringing in melody from the sound of crickets and cicadas.
A clock strikes twelve, the hands forever still.
Wavering as if scared to tick away at time.
Leaving the present, left to rust.
To corrode and crumble away.
The company of young girls lay down,
Corsets pressing on the solar plexus.
As swans rise from the nest of lace and ribbon,
And set the stage for their last performance.
Eyes are drawn vertical,
As we scathe the rock.
Spirits whispering, calling us to come closer.
Abandon all warnings of mornings past.
There is a hunger to consume what is to be found,
Under crevices and cavities.
Where the earth deposits its sediments,
And clouds glimmer like mystic lakes.
Rocks with ancient faces,
Their mouths open wide.
Trees with beckoning branches,
Outstretched like arms and hands.
Our fate has been decided before we were purple-born.
As ‘everything begins, and ends, at exactly the right time, and place’.
In addition to the poem, my readers know that I’ve always loved curating Spotify playlists that transport me between these beautiful and liminal spaces. This playlist creates a soundtrack for the in-between—those moments where time feels suspended, where reality blurs into something softer, more elusive. Whenever I listen to certain tracks, I find myself back at Hanging Rock, caught in the haze of the story, wandering through those timeless spaces where the known and unknown converge.
Revel in the fresh Spring air my loves!
Poetics Pulpit x