Tilba Tilba is the original settlement of the Tilba district — a small, unhurried farming hamlet nestled in the valley below Gulaga (Mount Dromedary), alongside the waters of Tilba Tilba Lake. Its name comes from the Thawa language of the Yuin people, and is said to mean “many waters” — a fitting description for a locality surrounded by creeks, lagoons, and the broad lake that mirrors the mountain above it.
The district was first settled by Europeans in 1869 when Henry Jefferson Bate took up a selection near the site of the village. The Bate family would go on to shape the entire Tilba area — establishing farms, supporting the first cheese factory, and eventually giving rise to Central Tilba when Henry’s brother Sam struck out on his own 3 kilometres up the hill in 1891 after a disagreement about how to develop the town. Tilba Tilba itself retains much of its original character: a quiet valley community with grazing land running down to the lake edge, and the green slopes of Gulaga rising to the west. A 19th-century traveller described the district as “a perfect little gem in the wildest and most rugged setting… it must be seen to be properly appreciated.”
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