Victorian Plantation (HVP) estate is also in the east, whereas most of the western Strzeleckis is privately owned farmland. The Ranges are very similar in formation and appearance to the Otway Ranges southwest of Melbourne. Indigenous history The eastern Strzelecki Ranges fall within the territory of the Gunai or Kurnai people and part of the western Ranges within the territory of the Bunurong nation. In the Aboriginal Boonwurrung language, the range is called Tolone. Stone axes, grinding stones and bush ovens provide evidence of aboriginal use of the tall dense forests of the ranges. It is believed that aboriginal people did not permanently occupy the wet forested mountain ranges because of uncertain food supplies and the harsh climate. During summer and spring short trips were common. The Ranges were a source of lyrebird tail feathers, which were used for ornamentation and for trade. European explorers Before permanent European settlement, the coast to the south of the Strzeleckis was visited by sealers and wattle bark gatherers, but they did not settle. Samuel Anderson (1803–1863), a Scottish immigrant from Kirkcudbright, agriculturist and explorer, established a squatter agricultural settlement on the Bass River in 1835, the third permanent settlement in Victoria (then called the Port Phillip District). The first European to explore the Strzelecki Ranges was Angus McMillan, who came in search of pastures from New South Wales in 1839. However, the Strzelecki Ranges are named after the Polish explorer, Paweł Edmund Strzelecki (also known as Paul Edmund de Strzelecki). In 1840, after climbing and naming Australia's highest mountain Mount Kosciuszko, he journeyed further south into Gippsland. Heading towards Port Phillip Bay, his party entered the north-eastern end of the Strzelecki Ranges and struggled through the rugged and thick forest for 22 days, before finally emerging starved and exhausted at Corinella on Western Port Bay. Vegetation The eastern Ranges were originally covered by a mosaic of wet forest, dominated by 90-metre-tall mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) and cool temperate rainforest of myrtle beech and tree ferns. Drier mixed forest of messmate (Eucalyptus obliqua), peppermint (E. radiata) and mountain grey gum (E. cypellocarpa) were more common in the foothills of the western Strzeleckis. In 1976, a monument was unveiled by the Hon Jim Balfour to the "World's Tallest Tree" near Thorpdale, which in 1881 was measured by a surveyor, George Cornthwaite, at 375 feet (114.3 metres) after it had been chopped down. This account was