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From: "bcunning" <>
Subject: Re: History of SA gold mining [Re: [ZA] Re: SOUTH-AFRICA-D DigestV03 #652]
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 00:45:45 +1100
References: <FBBFC9B6-2001-11D8-AE8A-000A958703BA@alphalink.com.au>


Hello. Just to add to your message Andrew, there is a wonderful place called
"Sovereign Hill" near Ballarat in Victoria. It is a very large place with
shops of the 1800's era, gold panning, people in period costume and much
more. You would find it very interesting, a day there seems to pass too
quickly. Cheers, Bob in Australia.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Rodger" <>
To: <>
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 10:16 PM
Subject: Re: History of SA gold mining [Re: [ZA] Re: SOUTH-AFRICA-D
DigestV03 #652]


>
> Maureen's wonderfully evocative description of Millwood prompts me to
> urge Listers who live in, or contemplate visiting, Australia and New
> Zealand to visit similar sites in those countries. In New Zealand there
> is the little village of Arrowtown, still alive as a village, but with
> its own ghost settlement tucked away in a side street: rows of little
> huts where early Chinese gold-diggers lived while scratching a living in
> the gold there which, as in Millwood, soon ran out. In Victoria,
> Australia, there is a site in metropolitan Melbourne where a vein of
> gold was found, and the Yarra River was diverted from one of its many
> horseshoe bends through a shortcut tunnel by means of a dam, to permit
> its working; when the gold ran out, they just blew up the dam and the
> only trace of all this now is the tunnel, which still carries some of
> the water, and the area is now a public park called Pound's Bend in the
> far outer suburb of Warrandyte. In Eastern Victoria there is the ghost
> town of Walhalla, in the mountains north of the Latrobe Valley, where
> the miners, being British, provided themselves with a cricket ground by
> cutting off the top of a hill. The nature of the terrain led to a local
> rule that if you hit a six you were out, and had to find the ball
> afterwards, play meanwhile continuing with a spare . . . Its spooky
> adit and the cool contrast of the underground workings with the heat
> outside was recelled to me by the description of Millwood, but Walhalla
> also has an old railway with a timber trestle bridge. There are other
> similar sites in other States, notably Hill End in New South Wales.
>
> On Wednesday, November 26, 2003, at 12:29 AM, Editor wrote:
>
> > Millwood! Thanks, Pat. That's the place -- oh, there's the dearest wee
> > wood
> > & corrugated iron house still standing there (or was, in about
> > 1986-87). The
> > day I visited, I was charmed by a big clump of snowdrops growing just
> > outside the front door -- definitely a woman's touch. I felt I could
> > move
> > right in & feel at home, although the old adits & stopes are quite
> > spooky. I
> > have a vague recollection that one of the bigger buildings was moved
> > into
> > Knysna proper & houses the Millwood Museum. I agree with you about the
> > forests -- the Great Fire of 18?? did enough damage. I think all
> > historians
> > have a secret hankering to be time travellers!
> >
> > The only other ghost gold rush town I've visited is the site of Eureka
> > City
> > on the koppies above Sheba Mine near Barberton. Although Pilgrim's Rest
> > has
> > been so well preserved for posterity as a living place, what other ghost
> > towns remain? Shades of High Noon, tumbleweeds blowing down the main
> > street
> > & two gunfighters sizing each other up ... except, I read somewhere that
> > American miners who came here commented on the noticeable lack of
> > "gun-slinging" in SA. Just today, I found a copy of AP Cartwright's
> > "Valley
> > of Gold" (Howard Timmins, 1973), which narrates the history of the
> > Eastern
> > Transvaal gold rush -- can't wait to start reading it!
> >
> > Regards
> > Maureen
> >
> Andrew Rodger
>
>
>
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