Gold diggers Graves

[IRISH]

Been meaning to post this for a while, the story is 150 years old anyhow though [] .

We went on a detecting trip to Maryborough Victoria recently and I took a few photo's I thought I'd share.
These are graves of gold diggers from 1855/56 on the south end of the old Adelaide Lead, there where ten's of thousands of people there in the rush from all over the world and due to lack of water and too many people there where a few big outbreaks of disease in the camps and a lot of diggers died. I'd heard about the graves in the bush before but never seen them, it is an incredible sense of history to stand in the quite, empty Ironbark bush with old gold diggers holes on one side and the graves of the men who dug them all around, there is nothing else left. Very sad place in a lot of ways.

This is a couple of the graves, the little metal crosses are modern, probably put there so others realise not to disturb them.

 

[IRISH]

This looks like a childs grave.

You can see how hard and dry the country in in the central Vic. Goldfields, must have been a horrible shock for the oldtime diggers going from wet, green countrys to this [] .

 

[IRISH]

This is a bit of a look at the countryside, this was taken on the site of an old town a few KM from the graves, a few thousand people lived there in the mid 1870's now it's all like the bit in the photo. The yellow and red thing in the background is one of my mates detecting the old gold diggings below the townsite, we did not get any Gold on the trip but it was great fun all the same.

I've wandered over hundreds of Gold diggings but never got quite the sense of history though just being there as from that place with all the graves.

 

[Bluebelle]

Thank you for sharing this piece of history with us. A very moving story, and not one that we would see in the typical "tourist" literature.

 

[Gunsmoke47]

Great photos and story Irish. Old graves will always bring a sobering realization of just how hard the times and people were back then. Tough bunch of people following a dream. I often thought I was born 100 years too late..... but then again, I'm not sure I would have what it must have taken.[8|] I believe civilization in general is a lot softer today. Better luck next time with the gold.[] Kelley

 

[CALDIGR2]

I like this sort of "personal touch" to a narrative. There are many such graves in my area, with many receiving no care whatsoever.

Were you able to find any bottles on your trip? I've heard tales of the piles of glass laying about in these Aussie gold camps.

 

[TROG]

Here Is a Pic I took a few months ago in outback New South Wales /Not as old as the other ones but very interesting.

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[IRISH]

CALDIGR2, there would be thousands of bottles in some of these places, problem is there is tens of thousands of holes on some leads and finding the ones with bottles in in the rock hard ground is a bit of a task, the Adelaide lead is about 9 Km long to the point it joins the Inkerman lead, Inkerman is at lest a few Km long as well and there are holes every few feet apart. A lead is the gravel and heavy stuff that's worked it's way to the lowest point though time, gravity and water, the Gold is on the very bottom layer in almost all leads and that is anything from a few inches up to hundreds of feet deep, the oldtimers dug holes on every bit of the good leads and took out most of the wash (gravel with the Gold in it).

Here is a photo of a waste heap (mullock heap) that is full of broken 1850's blacks, it's been dug years ago but is as much glass as dirt.

The ground here has been so well detected you can go all day and only get one or two targets.

 

[IRISH]

This is the hole the mullock with the bottles in it came from, mostly the old leads are just cratered, pockmarked ground where the old holes have caved in, in this lead the ground is so hard the holes are still perfect after 150 years. The holes are all about three meters deep here, the wash sit's on bedrock and that's as deep as they dug.