| travelogue | After the gold rush A road trip through rural Victoria plunges David Whitley into Australia’s surprising frontier history


The map is extraordinary. It shows the secret underground city beneath Bendigo — a staggering network of nearly 6,000 mine shaſts and the tunnels branching from them. On the surface, Bendigo is all well-preserved


19th-century architecture, but the massive funds required to build it came from what lies beneath. In 1851, gold was discovered being washed down a creek, and from then on a gold rush spanning nearly a century transformed the fledgling Australian state of Victoria. The Central Deborah mine is now the preserve


of tourists rather than miners. Visitors are taken down the shaſt in a liſt, then guided underground. Part of the experience is seeing the rich seams of white quartz — the rock in which gold is usually found — up close. One section that still has speckles of gold in it is understandably guarded by a protective barrier. But the tour is much more about learning what conditions were like for miners down there: “The


48 ABTA Magazine | April 2017


man on the steel platform’s job was to load a truck with rocks,” says the guide. “He had to fill one truck every four minutes for seven hours. It was a huge amount of work.” Then there are the drills, which replaced


hammers and chisels in 1886. “This one was called the widowmaker,” offers the guide. “Because of the dust.” Quartz is a natural glass, and geting tiny shards of it in the lungs was not conducive to a long, healthy life. And that’s before you even address the deafening noise striking it makes.


FORTUNE HUNTING But, without the gold that mines such as this produced, Australia would likely be a very different country. The precious metal turned Oz into a desirable place to seek one’s fortune, bringing in people beyond the original British setlers, as Californians and Chinese prospectors came to try their luck. Bendigo, and the other goldfield towns, played a massive part in the


“Australia isn’t generally seen as a heritage destination, but it has a history that surprises”


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