It would have been idyllic were it not for the sound of a police helicopter reverberating over the valley.
By late afternoon on Wednesday the rain had slowed to a drizzle in Porepunkah. Mist curled around the foothills of Mt Buffalo. Cows and sheep grazed under a grey sky, unperturbed by the massive manhunt around them.
A day before, Dezi Freeman had vanished into the dense bushland surrounding the semi-remote property he lived on after he allegedly shot and killed two police officers and injured a third after they came to execute an arrest warrant on him.
They were detective leading senior constable Neal Thompson, 59, a local detective planning his retirement, and senior constable Vadim De Waart, 35, who was on temporary assignment in Victoria’s alpine region.
Freeman had been living with his family on a bush block at the end of a dirt road a few kilometres outside Porepunkah, a small town in Victoria’s high country surrounded by bushland on one side and pine plantations on the other.
Journalists and camera crews that had stopped at a police roadblock on Mt Buffalo Road on Wednesday evening thought they heard what sounded like shots from the direction of the property. Paramedic cars and unmarked police vehicles arrived not long afterwards. But the latest from police on Wednesday evening was that the search would continue.
A convoy of police vehicles including armoured Bearcats were seen leaving the roadblock area where the alleged shooter had been living. The roadblock remained in place and Victoria police said there would be no extra information on Wednesday evening.
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The Victoria police chief commissioner, Mike Bush, on Wednesday morning conceded Freeman, a “sovereign citizen” who had professed his hatred of police during previous brushes with the law, understood bushcraft well and knew the land better than the scores of officers searching for him.
There had been no confirmed sightings of Freeman since the attack, Bush said. He said police had not recovered any firearms from the property where the shooting took place, leading officers to believe Freeman had taken them all with him.
Bush said there was no reason to believe Freeman had left the area, and that every available officer had been deployed in the effort to find him. Almost a decade ago, the force used similar resources in the same region while hunting armed fugitives Mark and Gino Stocco, who had also shot at police.
Marty Robinson, who owns the mechanic shop in town, said he knew Freeman and his family. He described Freeman as a “new age Ned Kelly” who would be “pretty handy in the bush” even with up to a metre of snow forecast for the region over the next three days.
“I’m not saying he’s a hero or a legend but he’s someone’s father.”
Standing on Porepunkah’s main street, gesturing up at the hills behind him, Robinson said the police “could be up there for weeks looking for” him.
Unprompted, Robinson remarked on Freeman’s fringe views. “He doesn’t fit in and he doesn’t go along with the rules and he’s an antivaxxer – that’s all probably true,” he said.
Robinson said Porepunkah still felt like a “sleepy little town” to him. Other residents said they were shocked.
Porepunkah is in a picturesque part of north-eastern Victoria, not far from Falls Creek and Mt Hotham. The petrol station on the main street doubles as place to hire ski gear.
One local, who asked not to be named, said the town was “wholesome” and home to a “really lovely community”.
“It’s not some conspiracy theorist town,” they said. “What’s happened – in any place [it would be] so far out of the ordinary. So it’s quite surreal really.”
On such a wintry day, you could imagine most people would have remained indoors even if police, who transformed a local winery into a temporary operations centre, hadn’t sent automated text messages to everyone in the area warning them to stay inside while Freeman was on the run.
Those who left home to go to work, or ducked out to get a coffee or collect their mail, were met with a throng of journalists, photographers and camera crews in town, most of whom who had driven up from Melbourne.
Another Porepunkah local, Jesslyn Ellis, said she lived down the road from Freeman and believed he had lived in the area for about 25 years.
“I never really knew him but I knew of him,” she said. “I just feel so sorry for his family. Obviously, I feel for the police and their families too.”
Despite the inclement weather, Ellis said she was sure Freeman knew “how to look after himself” out in the bush.
“He could be in a cave. He could be down a mine. He could show up anywhere,” she said.
Kealan Lee, who was driving through the town on his way home to Yarrawonga from a visit to the dentist, said it was a “pretty rugged” place.
“I used to come up here four-wheel driving as a kid. There’s not much open space,” he said.
“Where he is and how they’re gonna find him, that’s anyone’s guess.”
With additional reporting by Cait Kelly
