Mt Buninyong to Ballarat

27 November, 2020. 28-35C, hot. 20.52 kms.

‘The Digger’s [sic] Road Guide to the Gold Mines of Victoria’. Date: August 1853. Cost: 2/6d. One of the very many ways of making money out of the gold rushes. The red lines were the ones to follow. The thicker red line to Ballarat, however, does not lead to Ballarat. It leads to Buninyong.

It all happened somewhere near here. It’s a very attractive painting, but there’s something weird about it. One clue, the date: 1884, or 30 years after the scene it purports to represent. A second matter. When he painted it on commission from James Oddie, the first Director of the Ballarat Art Gallery, von Guérard was in Germany. To me it looks like a circus has come to a very tidy town. Surely things would have been much messier than that, and a good deal more crowded. I remain to be convinced.

That out of the way, in the background is a modest mountain. With its little peak it could be Warrenheip, but for the purposes of iconography it should (and still could) be Mt Buninyong, a volcanic cone 12 kms south-east of the heart of Ballarat. (‘Buninyong’ is probably a variant of the word, ‘buninyouang’ which in the language of the Wathaurrung people, the traditional owners, means ‘man lying on his back with his knees raised’. You have to respect a language that includes a word like that.)

It is also the southern starting point of the Goldfields Track. After being seduced by the leg between Ballarat and Creswick and with the option for investigating wide open spaces spreading out in front us for the first time in most of year, we thought we’d do all of the Track’s 200 or so kilometres. Properly.

This was one of the views that greeted us from the top.

Verdant paddocks, full dams, lush vegetation — it had been a very fine spring.

There is lots of interest in all the legs of this walk. None even vaguely disappoints. But this one, perhaps because it is the most urban and perhaps because by the time of arrival it was so hot, was not my favourite. Yes it begins on the summit of the mount. (We’d organised a car shuttle. Jessie our daughter was with us.) Then it coasts down the side of the cone with a few zig-zags. It was a lovely crisp morning.

We missed the turnoff down the Wallaby Track because the busy Midland Highway was being remade and crossing it a serious challenge, thereby missing Buninyong township’s Botanical Gardens which was a pity.

He was also a member of the Exploration Committee which oversaw the Burke and Wills expedition to cross the continent from south to north. His expert views were constantly voted down by people who rarely left their lounge rooms. But that is another story. (Just four sentences of which are: On 20 August 1860, the Expedition was farewelled from Royal Park by 15,000 spectators. It included 23 horses, 26 camels and six wagons and carrying 20 tonnes of baggage which included a cedar table with a sitting of chairs, a Chinese gong and ‘enough food for two years’. One wagon broke down before they got out of Royal Park. By midnight that day — the going was heavy apparently — they got to Essendon (7 km) where two more wagons broke down. It was never going to work.)

But we didn’t miss Buninyong, the streets of which are full of gold era buildings, the Town Hall being the most prominent.

There is also this lovely church, originally Presbyterian, now Uniting, with its long sloping accents.

It was built in 1860. Its first pastor, Thomas Hastie, remained in that position for 44 years. I should think possibly too long. But the Nugget Hotel is more how I imagine remnant goldfields architecture.

Squat, solid, snug, plain. Georgian Primitive perhaps. But it has had its moments, moments which are probably more reflective of life on the goldfields than the grandeur of Craig’s Hotel or the architectural icons on Sturt and Lydiard Streets.

From the ‘Star’ on the 10 June 1861:

An inquest was held at the Nugget Hotel, Buninyong, before G. Clendinning, Esq., Coroner of the district, on the body of James Savage, surgeon, who died suddenly on Saturday morning at the above mentioned hotel. The body lay in the concert-room of the hotel. The following witnesses were examined.

William B. Smith, landlord of the Nugget Hotel, sworn, … proceeded as follows. I knew the deceased five years. His age was about 35, and he was an Irishman and a Roman Catholic. Upon Thursday evening about ten o’clock the deceased came into my house, his face all covered with blood, and with one boot on. I asked him where he had been, but from the state of intoxication that deceased was in he could not tell me. Myself and lodgers examined his head, fearing that he had been struck there, but could find no injury. I found subsequently that the blood came from a cut across the nose. I requested two of my lodgers to take him across to the boarding-house, where he had been stopping for the last five months, which they did, but informed me that admittance was refused to deceased. I then stated that he was sure to be ultimately taken in at the boarding-house. I was, however, so uneasy, that in about half an hour I sent two men over to fetch him to my own house, if he had not been taken in, as the night was frosty and cold, and I felt that it would be only charity to give him shelter for the night.

Deceased had not been taken into the boarding house, and the men brought him over to my house. I then ordered him to be taken up stairs to the attic, which is a place not generally used as a sleeping apartment, but more frequently for poor men who cannot pay for the accommodation. My house was full. I provided him with a rug from my own bed, and pillows.

About six o’clock in the morning, deceased knocked at the bar door and requested for God’s sake a drop of colonial beer, as he was perished. I gave a pint to him, and subsequently another. Finding that he was begging a sixpence of some fishermen in the bar [this is the surgeon], I told him not to do so, and that if he would promise to go up stairs I would give him another pint of beer, which, upon getting, he did.

About 2 p.m. I had a conversation with him for about half an hour. The conversation was principally about his affairs. He was quite rational. At about a quarter past four on Friday evening, the deceased came into the bar and requested me to send to the boarding-house for his medicine box, which I did by a man of the name of Kilpatrick. The box now produced is the one. He asked for two tumblers, and out of the packet now produced he took a small quantity on the point of a knife, and put it in the tumbler with some water, which he drank. The amount of stuff taken would cover a sixpence. Thinking this not enough, he further took a small quantity more, which he added to the previous quantity he had taken out of the parcel produced.

To the jury – After having drank the powder, he requested from me a nobbler of brandy, and promised that he would go to bed and annoy me no more that day. I ordered him to get the brandy. By the jury – This was about half-past four o’clock. He did not remark anything about it being enough for him, or anything of that sort. He then thanked me for the brandy, and went up stairs to bed. I did not again see him alive. Next morning about twelve o’clock feeling surprised that he had not come down, I sent a man up to see what was the matter, who in a minute or so informed me he was dead. The man’s name who found him was Kilpatrick. I could not believe it, and went up stairs myself and found that he was dead, and lying on his right side with his knee slightly contracted. His head was on the pillow, and he was warm. I then sent for Dr Rankin and the Sergeant of Police. By the jury-He was sober on the Thursday night. He was not outside my door, on the Friday, and all the drink he had was the three pints of beer and the nobbler of brandy. My sole motive in taking him into my house was pure charity, and a good feeling of friendship, as the deceased had no money to pay for anything. … By the Police -I know only from hearsay how the blood came upon his face. Deceased was in the habit of taking sudden fits of intemperance which, while they lasted, were generally the most desperate character. The paper out of which the deceased took the powder was marked “morphia”.

We must move on. We’ve scarcely left the mountain.

By the time we got to the left turn at Mount Clear the heat was really beginning to kick in. Time for a cool drink, an energising cool drink. There was a shopping centre in exactly the right spot but we were still living in a flood of coronavirus anxiety: shops were open or not open, outside people were masked or not, unsure of how to play it. Tradies were bombarding the fish and chip/ hamburger joint with custom, but that wasn’t quite what we were after.

Tucked away in a corner we found the Wellness Health Store and Smoothie Bar which had everything we wanted — I think I had a Tropical Explosion, superb, and exactly as required — and quite a lot more. We sat outside on some steps in the walkway which gave me plenty of time to review the window display.

Salted maple hemptations, Organic Activated Tamari Almonds, Keto and Paleo (at the same time!) chips, NO PONG all natural anti-odourant, Byron Epsom Salts, Tea Tonic Gold Sugar, and that’s even before we come to the pièce de résistance — a meditating Santa offering an ambitious supply of condoms. Worth the walk on its own really. I’ll be back.

A kilometre and a half up and over the hill from one leg to the other, unprepossessing in the main, just a semi-suburban street, although there was some sort of old furnace on the left framed by a dead tree which would have had a story. This was gold country. The Union Jack Lead which we had just passed nearby was one of the most productive on the Ballarat fields.

For the last seven or so kilometres, the Track uses a well-established walk way along the side of the … well we’ll call it a river. There can’t be many cities of Ballarat’s size where you can walk several kilometres into the centre largely through treed natural surroundings — and in Ballarat you can do it from at least two directions. This was a very pleasant surprise, as was the amount of shade along the way.

And then we came to the several wetlands. Another attractive surprise, sufficient to require a cup of tea. (Not illustrated. The photos start packing up about now. Too hot to be bothered.)

We failed to correctly read the waymark next to the bridge you can hardly see in the background of this photo and followed the Redan Creek rather than the mighty Yarrowee, a two kilometre mistake. Bad karma on a day like this, but of course precisely what you might expect. It was corrected quite readily but the last 4 kms were not enjoyed as much as they would be in other circumstances. I’d like to go back and have another look at the very serious bluestone drain which houses the Yarrowee until it disappears underground to re-emerge near the station.

We managed the climb up Bakery Hill to our motel. Pleased. As I remember there was even the reward of an icy pole on the way. We staggered past the McDonalds cresting the hill without realising its relevance to this adventure.

This meditative Santa is wondering why he’s sitting outside the municipal toilets and whether he can get away with nicking that nugget up on the pillar there. He can’t. It is a facsimile of the Welcome Nugget (but not the Welcome Stranger Nugget), the second largest nugget of gold ever found — but Ballarat’s very own. It was found on Bakery Hill only about 100m from Macca’s near the corner of Humffray and Mair Streets, 9th June 1858.

It was found in the roof of a tunnel dug 55m underground by Red Hill Mining, a Company of 22 Cornishmen. I especially like this part of the story. (Remember the importance of the willing suspension of disbelief.) The proprietors of the ‘hole’ went away to lunch, leaving a hired man — casual labour, the Deliveroo rider — digging with a pick axe. ‘After the pick struck something, the workman dug around it to see what it was. Then he fainted. The owners returned and, believing the prostrate man to be dead, one of them jumped in, turned him over, and also fainted. Both of them were dragged out and digging began wildly for the nugget which lay partly exposed. The mass was so great that the men at first thought they had struck a reef of pure gold.’ But no. Only 69 kgs. Still … quite a good one.

* * * * * * *

Sturt Street runs east-west through the middle of this art work, the Town Hall being a feature. This is what had been created in thirty years. Ballarat.

We’re looking out north towards the Creswick Ranges, and that’s where we’re back to next for a great part of the journey.