Fool's Gold

Our first night was a cold one and beanies and bed socks were the order of the day (or night really). The morning started with the tranquil sounds of heavy machinery as we soon found out the local council were for some reason grading the road within the caravan park!! Not to worry as it gave us the nudge we needed to get out and about. With the sun breaking through the clouds we headed off to the historic gold rush town of Hill End. Since Ash had been learning about the Australian gold rush at school we felt confident we wouldn’t need to join a tour when we got there.

We had our first (and I hope last) car sickness episode on the way. Thank goodness Timmy was wearing his cap when he decided he wasn’t feeling too good. As well as being able to keep the sun of your face, a cap also serves well as means of keeping vomit off your clothes and the car!!! After a quick pit stop and clean up we were soon on our way again. The drive through the rolling hills provided some spectacular scenery and magnificent views across the plains in the distance.

Hill End was not as I expected it to be. I had no real recollection of what the place was like from when I was last there as a young boy scout. Being a heritage listed township, I had visions of it being like a small version of Old Sydney Town. The buildings of the gold rush era that remain today still functions as pub, school house and private residences but in a way, the uniqueness of the place is in what’s no longer there. The vacant plots of land with period photographs of the building that once stood there, the tailors, the general store the fancy wares store and the shooting salon (what the?) invoked images of a time long gone. It wasn’t hard to look across to the river to the hills beyond and imagine a sea of tents and prospectors working their claims.

We drove up to Bald Hill to get a panoramic but chilly view back down to the town. After lunch we headed out of town to the Chinese Cemetery and the fossicking grounds. The cemetery seems to be a bit of a misnomer as there was not a Chinese name to be seen amongst the head stones and our young learned scholar was of no help – perhaps a bit of homework over the next few days to find out more. Not having anything to use to pan for gold in the fossicking area (thanks to the only place that rented them out being closed for the day), it was going to mean a bit of an uphill battle if we were to strike it rich!! We settled for a wonder around and kicking over few lumps of quartz on the off chance that the tens of thousands of people who had been there before us may all have overlooked the next big find!! Not to be!

Our final stop before heading back the caravan was a visit to The Arch. A little way upstream from the “public” fossicking area was a stretch of river bed that had cut itself into a deep gully. Over a century of erosion started from prospector’s diggings has caused the river bed to now lay a good 6m lower than it may have once been. It’s now a tourist’s curiosity but if it happened these days it would be call environmental vandalism!! Amongst the impressive formations of the walls gully is the aptly named Arch itself, an eroded bridge towering over the gully floor. We dared not venture too close because it didn’t look like it would take much to being the whole thing tumbling down.