5th Lap - Digging the Gold Digging past ( Central Victoria ) part 1

 

THE FIFTH LAP

Digging the gold digging past (i)

Last:  Reminiscing Melbourne

Photo Album:  5th Lap - Digging the gold digging past (i)

After a few days  in Melbourne, catching-up with long lost friends, and walking about old haunts, it was time to continue the journey.

There is still one more long standing friendship to re-connect, so we left early in the morning, and pointed Sandi towards the historic town of Castlemaine.

We reached the smallish Organ Pipe National Park mid morning, with a tiny hint of rains, typical weather on winter mornings in the Melbourne area.  Organ Pipe NP offers a good point for breaking up the drive, only a few hundred meters off the Calder Highway.

It was an easy hour of walking up and down some steep hills to marvel at the geological attractions....

and of course, the Organ Pipes ( a geological formation Organic Pipe Formation ) ....

The Rosetta Rock ( actually an end-on horizontal organ pipe formation )....

and the Tessellated Pavement ( a buried organ pipe formation ).....

Just as we were finishing our walk through the organ pipe tracks, rain started, it was a misty drive through Mt Macedon.  We stopped at the Ash Wednesday Park for our lunch break.

The park brings back the remarkable memory of that horrible day in Feb 1983, when bush fires were raging all around Melbourne, far and wide ( read Ash Wednesday 1983 ).  On that 40+ deg day, it was about 6 pm, our house on Mullens Rd, Vermont South was suddenly engulfed in ash like smog with heavy burnt smells, we thought our house was on fire.  I dashed to check on our first baby sleeping at the back of the house to see if she was safe. It was about 5 pm, the normally brightly lit summer day was shrouded in smog.  The radio was bellowing out the tragedy that was unfolding in the Mt Macedon area, which suffered heavily, with many victims, deaths and untold lost of properties. A very vivid memory.

Between Mt Macedon and Castlemaine, we took a long detour to include Daylesford, to taste again, in my opinion, the World's best mineral spring water.  We first tasted this in 2010 when we were returning from a trip to the Kangaroo Island, out of Tipperary Spring near Daylesford. However, when we got there, it was under reconstruction, another victim of the El Nino rains over the last two years. So we went searching for another spring in the area.

Tipperary Spring under re-construction...

Before reaching another spring, we went pass the Blow Hole, however, this is not a coastal one and does not actually create a spectacle water spray. It is a man-made diversion of the river through a tunnel, to slow down the flow, so as to allow sluicing of alluvial gold ( gold in the river beds ).  My most layman interpretation is, this is akin to panning of alluvial gold, instead of by hand, but by water over a cascade of rock steps.

Harrison's Cut on Victorian Highland is another example of this, which I came across whilst exploring the Gold Fields of the Victorian Highlands a decade ago.

Finally we found another spring, the Locarno Spring, which has a large picnic area, dotted with a few taps delivering the mineral spring water. As we approached one of the spring taps, and a man walked towards us, waving his empty bottle and said with a serious tone, "it's all dried up, no more !!".  My mind say "what?!!"  No more of that effervescent mineral spring water that I reckon is the best in the World, as far as I have tasted....all dried!!

My better senses took over, adding it up altogether...I replied, " don't you pull my legs !!", he chuckled, and we went on to have a chat....

So we bottled a couple of bottles after having a drink there and then, sure it is, still the same wonderful effervescent ( because of the high pressure under the ground ) natural mineral water that we drank 12 or 13 years ago!!

But this time, we would not commit the same greedy mistake again, when we threw away 20 litres of water from one of our water cans and refilled it with this spring water, only to find out, in the next morning, that they became all flat and rusty looking, staled water, unpleasant! 

We reached Jan's place late in the afternoon, and enjoyed a very pleasant evening reminiscing and rejoicing the near 40 years of friendship.  Her late husband still owes me the email that he promised when he got to the other side, we joked.  I remarked, George always repays what he owes !!

My original plan was to visit Bendigo the next morning, the once prosperous "Big Gold Mountain" with a serious linkage to Taishan, Guangdong, my ancestral home town. However, Jan recommended us to spend some time walking around Maldon, a slight detour on our way to Bendigo.

Maldon was a prosperous town during the gold rushes in the mid-1800s ( ref:  Maldon History ), for having mines of the highest grade amongst the Australian goldfields in that era.

The rich settlement left its mark with many notable houses and buildings, which are still standing, alive and well maintained to this date, some 170 years later.  We spent the best part of the morning and early afternoon walking around Maldon, however to give it justice, we should have spent more time so to checkout the shops and down the Beehive Mine, which unfortunately was not open.

Maldon today is very much a living town, its primary school founded in 1873 is still going strong.

Quite a few old mansions are still in full use today, and are protected under Heritage regulations.

Some are less glamorous, but are still very gracious...

An interesting mail box outside an old church....

"Starbuck" of the era......

and its backyard....

Probably "central market" of the era.

The classic bakery....

Main St. today, probably nowhere near as busy as it was during the gold rush....it was about 9,000 people in Maldon at its peak, during the mid-1800s versus today of about 1,500.  It was mainly gold diggers, now artists.  It was lined with stylish horse drawn carriages, now automobiles!

The mail box for Santa....

A traditional Royal mail box...

And of course, a lolly shop...

But I think mechanic shops came much later....

40 Kms or so further north, Sandi took us into the hustle and bustle traffics of Bendigo, a historic Victorian town, a major center during the mid-1800 gold rush days.

.....read more

Gremlins:  none.

Next:  Digging the Gold Digging Past (ii)

Previous:  Reminiscing Melbourne