Yesterday we took a road trip to a little town called
Dunolly. Bruce had passed through it a few times travelling to and from work
and was keen for me to take a look. It is probably about a 45 minute to an hour
drive from Castlemaine and I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived there. It
had that historical feeling that is so common around the small towns scattered
in Victoria. One thing that is very apparent in this little state is the beauty
of these little towns. When I talk about beauty, I don’t mean perfection,
shining and glittering. What I notice are beautiful buildings well preserved
and respected for their outstanding architecture and the story behind each one of
them.
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| Dunolly Town Hall |
A man by the name of Archibald Campbell McDougall named the
town of Dunolly after a Scottish castle from which his family originated. As
you can imagine, this town is famous for being a significant part of the gold
rush of 1852. Gold was discovered between Dunolly and Moliagul and the first
gold rush began. Back in 1856 when the gold rush was moving along Burnt Creek
there were 35,000 people in this little town. I walked up Broadway which is the
main street in Dunolly and stopped to talk to a lady outside her shop and then
sat in the local bakery and enjoyed a pie. There is something inviting about
being in a town that once bustled with miners and thrived with the wealth
created by the region. We talked to another local man who one hundred years
earlier, with his long beard and friendly manner could have easily been one of
those miners. He told us about metal detectors and gave us a taste of what it
might have been like to hunt for gold. He told us about the anvil across the
road outside the museum which presumably was used to cut one of the largest
nuggets ever found – that is according to the monument. He told us another
story, however. According to him, the original anvil had been sold for a
substantial price because of its significance. The monument looked impressive
and so also did the displays of replica gold nuggets that we viewed in the window of Dunolly Museum. The Gold Licence which was once required
to mine for gold has now been replaced by the Miner’s Right system. Of course,
it is a little easier perhaps to find gold with the new technology. The miners from
the past unfortunately did not have that available to them.
On our journey home, we stopped in another little town where
we found the remains of a church. It would have once been a grand old church
welcoming people for various services. Back in 2000, it had been burnt down –
that is, the interior had gone but the walls remained. Looking up through the
façade of the church towards the sky seemed strange but beautiful. The once
grand entrance where probably people pulled up in their horse and cart was now
rusted, bent and chained up. 
What struck me was that even though the interior
was gone, the grandness and story of a bygone era was evident.
Just to the rear
of the church which was now privately owned, we found another monument
signifying the involvement of New Zealanders in finding a large quantity of
gold. After pondering our own country’s involvement in this little piece of
history, we headed off through Tarnagulla, another little quaint town in which
time seems to have stood still with its little houses and shops, with terrace
roofs precariously leaning and crooked. There have been no renovations here.
Time has weathered the town and it stands as a testament of its age and
history.
