Day 42

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What do you do in Wangaratta?
Well we chose to head south to Glen Rowan to check out The history of our infamous Bush Ranger, Ned Kelly.
We arrived early enough to check out “Kates Cottage” and walk through the museum area and then did the walk around the areas that the siege and capture of Ned Kelly took place, and followed with interest the commentary about the interesting story.

Fact or fiction or a miscarriage of justice or maybe corrupt law authorities, will we ever know?
We found it very interesting and certainly felt that a lot more promotion of this small tourist town and some small innovative ideas we picked up on our USA trip, could create a wonderful visit, yet that aside, we certainly enjoyed the experience.

After checking out the “what to do” in Wangaratta guide, we headed up to El Dorado, one of the first places in Victoria where Alluvial gold mning was establ.ished on Reedy creek, also the home of the Largest Bucket line Gold dredge ever built in the Western Hemisphere.
Gee who would be interested in that heap of rusted “junk”?

Through some interesting rolling hill country and a small town of around 250 people that was once the home of 20,000 people and 80 pubs.
We found the huge machine, beached in a dredge hole and not a lot left but under the Heritage trust banner to protect it from further destruction.

Really interesting site and history, this machine mined both Gold and tin, and was very productive to mine in the deep lead alluvial deposits that were inaccessible to earlier miners in hand hole digging which cost lives in collapsed shafts.

The deep lead runs at approximately 27 metres deep, which is certainly rather difficult to reach under The Old Fellas limited experience, if you consider he is familiar with 5 – 10 metres depth.

MMM maybe more home work required!

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