A man by the name of Archibald Campbell McDougall named the
town of Dunolly after a Scottish castle from which his family originated. As
you can imagine, this town is famous for being a significant part of the gold
rush of 1852. Gold was discovered between Dunolly and Moliagul and the first
gold rush began. Back in 1856 when the gold rush was moving along Burnt Creek
there were 35,000 people in this little town. I walked up Broadway which is the
main street in Dunolly and stopped to talk to a lady outside her shop and then
sat in the local bakery and enjoyed a pie. There is something inviting about
being in a town that once bustled with miners and thrived with the wealth created
by the region. We talked to another local man who one hundred years earlier,
with his long beard and friendly manner could have easily been one of those
miners. He told us about metal detectors and gave us a taste of what it might
have been like to hunt for gold. He told us about the anvil across the road
outside the museum which presumably was used to cut one of the largest nuggets ever
found – that is according to the monument. He told us another story, however.
According to him, the original anvil had been sold for a substantial price because
of its significance. The monument looked impressive and so also did the displays
of replica gold nuggets that had been found in the area in the window of
Dunnolly Museum. The Gold Licence which was once required to mine for gold has
now been replaced by the Miner’s Right system. Of course, it is a little easier
now to find gold with the new technology. The miners from the past unfortunately
did not have that available to them.
On our journey home, we stopped in another little town where
we found the remains of a church. It would have once been a grand old church welcoming
people for various Services. Back in 2000, it had been burnt down – that is the
interior had gone but the walls remained. Looking up through the façade of the
church towards the sky seemed strange but beautiful. The once grand entrance where
probably people pulled up in their horse and cart was now rusted, bent and
chained up. What struck me was that even though the interior was gone, the
grandness and story of a bygone era was evident. Just to the rear of the church
which was now privately owned, we found another monument signifying the
involvement of New Zealanders in finding a large quantity of gold. After
pondering our own country’s involvement in this little piece of history, we headed
off through Tarnagulla, another little quaint town in which time seems to have
stood still with its little houses and shops, with terrace roofs precariously leaning
and crooked. There have been no rennovations here. Time has weathered the town
and it stands as a testament of its age and history.
