Yesterday we didn’t feel like retracing our steps on the routes of our two most common walks. We had the urge for adventure, to tread where we had never trodden before.

We unfolded our new-ish map of forest activities around Daylesford, Castlemaine and Ballarat. It was too late in the day to embark on anything too far afield. After lunch and half an hour of deliberation, we settled for the area on the map marked as Spring Gully Mine and Battery Ruins, not far from Fryerstown, bordered by walking tracks.

If we’d had more time, en route I’d have driven down the beguilingly named Crocodile Reserve Road, just to see what was there, but with the sun low in the west, we needed to reach our destination before having to break out the torches.

A short distance from the parking area, a sign told us that we were at Spring Gully Junction where the mine and battery (crushing machine) operated between 1898 and 1911. A little further down the hill, below a fenced look-out, ruins of a stone building are slowly being reclaimed by vegetation.

“The nature, as well as the size, of the mining population changed as the nature of gold mining changed. There were four main types of gold mining, each reflecting the geological characteristics of the gold deposits. The first was shallow alluvial gold, which was well suited to the individual digger. Deeper mining of alluvial gold through clay and rock, that is to a depth of less than 30 metres, could be done by a group of diggers. Mining of alluvial gold at greater depth, especially beneath lava flows (the deep leads), required expensive machinery and prolonged de-watering with large pumps, and was suited to mining companies (especially public companies) that employed miners. Mining of gold-bearing quartz on any large scale required similar equipment to deep lead mining, plus large treatment plants (batteries) to crush the ore and separate the gold. Although some batteries would do this on a fee basis, it was largely a company undertaking.” From the Victorian Historical Journal

The six main quartz mines of Spring Gully have left behind relics of mining operations carried out between the mid 1850s and the late 1930s.

At the turn of the century the Spring Gully Company, which operated the main mine, was the district’s premier gold producer. When it ceased operations in 1929, it left behind ruins in stone, brick and concrete, as well as the timber foundations for an engine and a crushing machine, or battery.

The Heritage Council of Victoria says that the Spring Gully Quartz Gold Mines are of historical, archaeological and scientific importance to the Sate of Victoria. Not only did they provide much of Victoria’s wealth in the nineteenth century, they also played a role in the development of the manufacturing industry in Victoria.

With roughly dug and eroding gullies, deep mine shafts and artificial hills formed by the mullock heaps, little of the land’s original characteristics remains. Even the course of the creek was severely messed about with. In those days, mining companies didn’t concern themselves with notions of rehabilitating the landscape once they’d finished roughing it up.

It must have been a beautiful valley before the prospectors arrived. I couldn’t help wondering about the deep sense of loss that must have been felt by the indigenous people at the wholesale destruction of their country.

English author and natural scientist William Howitt predicted the wholesale damage caused by gold fever. To listen to his warning, go to eGold and scroll down to the film icon in the right-hand column.

It seems that Howitt’s vision, however, wasn’t of sufficient concern to prevent him from resisting the lure of gold when he joined those diggers feverishly carving up pristine bushland in search of their fortunes.