Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park

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Historic gold field on Mount Alexander (watercolor from 1852)
Mount Alexander today
Gold diggers' tracks at Forrest Creek in Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park

The Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park is located around Castlemain in Victoria , Australia , about 120 km from Melbourne . This park has been registered as a cultural monument on the Australian National Heritage List since January 27, 2005 and protects an area of ​​approximately 7480 hectares . The park is home to significant historical legacies from the Australian gold rush of the early 1850s. The gold field was originally named after the mountain there, Mount Alexander .

history

Australia's first gold rush in Bendigo in New South Wales and Ballarat in Victoria took place from June 1851. When Christopher Peters Thomas, the owner of a small sheep farm, discovered the gold deposits on Mount Alexander, he did not want to let this be known. Within a month Thomas and three of his friends broke gold-bearing material worth an annual salary from the rock with a hammer and chisel . However, the secrecy could not be maintained and there were not only many gold diggers from the first Australian gold fields, but also from England, Europe and America. In 1852 there were already 30,000 people living in the area of ​​the Castlemaine gold deposit. For comparison: In 1848 the total population of Victoria was 77,000. In 1852 the Castlemaine gold field was considered the largest on earth. In 1854 the first Chinese gold diggers came to the Castlemaine gold fields. They left behind a cemetery, the Vaughan Chinese Cemetery , and the site of a Chinese Market Gardens . The Chinese cemetery was occupied until 1857.

With this immigration came people who brought new knowledge, new jobs and new cultures to Australia. With gold digging, immigration, and the wealth it created, Australia's population skyrocketed, which was significant for Australia's economic prosperity well into the early 1890s and beyond.

The park shows how the early gold diggers changed the surface of the landscape through excavations, construction of paths and water channels, dams, storage and fire places and huts. The gold field shows numerous forms of early gold mining in Australia, the diversity of which cannot be exhibited anywhere else in Australia, as the first gold fields in Ballarat and Bendigo were built over by cities.

In the course of time the mining techniques as well as the economic investment and business models in the Castlemaine gold field changed. Gold mining ended in 1965. To date, approximately 5.6 million ounces of gold have been mined in the area.

The geological and geomorphological basis of the gold deposit can also be seen in the park .

Before the discovery of gold, there were numerous violent conflicts between the white settlers and the Aborigines of the Dja Dja Wurrung . When the prospectors came to this area, most of the surviving Dja Dja Wurrung had been deported in 1841 to the Loddon Aboriginal protectorate station near Franklinford between Castlemaine and Daylesford .

Despite the large earth movements, traces of the Dja Dja Wurrung who originally lived there have largely been preserved. Today, despite the deforestation to fire steam engines and to heat the gold in the quartz - to loosen it - the area is overgrown with trees again. The trees now form part of the typical Victorian box ironbark forests and have prevented the erosion that would have destroyed the historic sites.

Park access

The park is open to the public, there is hiking opportunities and there are camping sites. There are over 500 plant and 100 animal species in the park, including numerous bird species.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c environment.gov.au ( Memento of the original from March 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 50 kB): Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park , in English, accessed on November 16, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.environment.gov.au
  2. ↑ a b environment.gov.au ( Memento of the original from November 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 618 kB): Gold Strike, Victoria , in English, accessed on November 16, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.environment.gov.au
  3. ↑ a b c d e f environment.gov.au : Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park, Chewton Rd, Castlemaine, VIC, Australia , in English, accessed November 16, 2011 (with images)
  4. ↑ a b dpcd.vic.gov.au ( Memento of March 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 648 kB): Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park , in English, accessed November 16, 2011
  5. ↑ env.gov.au : Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park, Victoria , in English, accessed November 16, 2011
  6. ↑ goldfieldsrevegetation.com.au : Victorian Ecosystem , in English, accessed November 16, 2011

Coordinates: 36 ° 59 ′ 49 ″  S , 144 ° 18 ′ 18 ″  E