Strong
wind during the night brought a storm with rain, thunder and lightning. Though
as quickly as it arrived it disappeared again though the rain pitter pattered
for a while. It was a warmer night though, only 15 degrees when we got up in
the van and cloudy.
Mum
and Dad rang as we had tried them last night. All good. Lou is emailing us the
news articles on Bruce’s trial. I hope the Strubers get put away.
The
wind had blown all the clouds away but by 11am they were all back. Big drive
today - 15 kilometres!!
Drove
through Wedderburn to find the Hard Hill Tourist Reserve. Turned at the RV sign
and found a nice spot.
After
we had set up Steve walked around the track and found the actual campground
with toilets, shower, power and water – oh well we don’t need any of that so we
will stay where we are – it is flatter here.
After
lunch we headed around to check out the eucalyptus stew pot as Steve had seen
some men there.
Info
boards about the animals, birds and plants.
The
men are volunteers and were packing in the Blue Mallee leaves that they handcut
from some private properties into the stew pot.
The
fire is burning under it to heat the water already in the pot under the leaves.
A
lid is put on and sealed and as the water heats up the eucalyptus oil comes out
of the leaves and the water and oil goes through pipes immersed in the cooling
tank and then drip out into the pot.
The
oil sits on top in this pipe and they then scoop it out.
They seal the lid with clay.
They
connect the pipe from the stewing pot to the cooling tank. It takes about 3
hours to boil it and then 3 hours for the oil and water to drip out.
The
tools that were used to cut the mallee. Now there are harvesters and they put
it into a special truck that they can seal and put the steam straight into it
instead of the double handling of the leaves.
Some
info boards about two men who were instrumental in promoting eucalyptus stewing
as a tourist attraction for the town.
They
suggested we go into the Info Centre as they have a Eucalyptus Discovery Centre
there. It is situated in the old school. Very helpful ladies. Wedderburn was
named after a Scottish trooper that was brought over to help keep control in
the gold diggings. He was so like that they named the town after him. Squatters
took up thousands of acres of land here after it was visited by explorer Thomas
Mitchell in 1836 but gold was not discovered until 1852 when a shepherd named
Brady picked some up near his hut. Four men from South Australia though got the
‘spotters fee’ from the Government when they declared that they had found gold
here. Wedderburn has a population of about 900 now after the days of up to 7000
back in the 1800s. They have a replica miner’s shack complete with hessian
ceiling.
Some
old photos of mines and the town and lots about the many families that had
eucalyptus distilleries. Very
interesting.
Back
outside to check out the old school. Even had the bell on top.
The
lady suggested looking for gold in Queens Gully so we headed out of town for a
look. Stopped to check a paddock of blue mallee. The guys had said that the
company here were using areas under 99 year leases but they had just expired
and the government didn’t renew them. The company has now been buying up lots
of land to be able to continue with production. The guys said the plant
responds well to being harvested when it reaches this height. If left they will
just grow up into the spindly trees we see through the forests.
Turned
into Queens Gully Road and stopped to chat with a group by a fire. I had just
been reading an article about a chap, Mick Brown, who had found a big nugget in
February and he was here with some friends showing them how to detect. He sold
the nugget for a very good sum, I think $250,000 which was a lot more than the
gold value of his 87 oz nugget that he named ‘Fair Dinkum’. He said it had
walked over it a few times and it sounded like a beer can. He is now glad he
decided to dig it up.
He
found it with a 4500 and then went out and bought the new 7000. He has been
going over the areas he has done and has found even more with the 7000. There
is hope for Steve yet!! He had some targets marked out that he found with the
7000 and they had a 2300, 4500 and the 5000 so they were going to see how each
of them reacted to the targets. We asked if it was ok to watch so we joined in.
Unfortunately the first one only produced some steel down deep.
He
dug a few more deep holes but no gold. There was one more target which the 2300
found and it turned out to be a little bit like Steve finds.
He
showed us the latest bits he found around Wedderburn.
The
solid nugget was found where we were, a nice one – 75 grams.
Mick
digging another target – trouble is the 7000 finds the deep targets which means
you have to dig deep holes.
Back
to the van to dream of big nuggets.
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