Another review

In the low wooded hills just north of Melbourne stands a mysterious rock. It is not part of the nearby Macedon ranges. It stands alone, a volcanic pillar rising almost sheer from the surrounding wooded paddocks. Hanging Rock it's called, because it seems to lean slightly.

On St Valentine's Day, in 1900, a party of schoolgirls from the nearby ladies college went by horse and buggy to have a picnic at the rock. After lunch, four of the girls left the supervision of their teachers, and climbed up the steep gravelly path leading to the summit of the rock, from which there are commanding and magnificent views of the surrounding country. It was a hot summer's day. In the afternoon, most of the girls rested in the shade, fanning themselves to escape the stifling heat of the Victorian bush.

Later that afternoon, the stillness of the bush was shattered by the sound of screaming. One of the girls came running down from the rock, absolutely hysterical. The other girls and the teacher tried to comfort her and to find out what had happened. She could not say. Even afterwards, she had no recollection of what had happened. But, more mysterious still, the other three girls who had been up the rock at the same time, vanished without trace. And the other teacher who had been with the party had also disappeared.

Eventually, the school party made its way to the school. Police were sent for. An aboriginal tracker was brought in from a nearby area. Police and the tracker went all over the rock, looking for traces of the girls or signs of where they might have gone. There was no sign of them whatsoever. They had simply vanished. To this day, no one is sure what happened.

Were they abducted by some passing white slaver? Were they taken by aliens? Did they disappear into some sort of time slip or cosmic worm hole? Did they simply meet up with young men, carry out a prearranged and secret elopement and go to Melbourne, leaving no clue to their school mates or worried parents about where they had gone? No one knows. A famous book (Picnic At Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay), and a movie (Picnic At Hanging Rock, directed by Peter Weir) have been written and made about this astonishing mystery.