Stoney Creek School, near the old goldmining town of Talbot in central Victoria, closed in 1916, and its buildings were demolished long ago.
But here, in an eerie, abandoned schoolyard surrounded by thick bush, are the ruins of a rock garden shaped into a large map of Australia, built around the time of federation. This poignant reminder of a ghost town and the children who once lived here is just one of the many fascinating hidden secrets of central Victoria’s goldfields region.
The names Bendigo and Ballarat echoed around the globe after gold was first discovered in 1851, igniting a rush that attracted hopefuls from around the world: by the end of 1853, more than 200,000 people had flocked to the goldfields, and within a decade Australia’s population had trebled.
Victoria’s goldfields proved to be extraordinarily rich. According to the Victorian Mines Department, the state produced more than 60-million ounces of gold between 1851 and 1896 — and that’s only what was recorded. Today, gold is around $2600 per ounce.
While goldrush cities Ballarat and Bendigo feature their rich history at places such as Ballarat’s exceptional open-air museum Sovereign Hill and Bendigo’s Central Deborah Mine, getting off the beaten track across the backroads of the goldfields region makes for a fascinating journey into the past.
The search for gold left the countryside pockmarked with great mounds of earth known as mullock heaps, which are evidence
