Friday, December 23, 2011

Bingo!

Kathleen, Marcy, Pearl, Sarah, and Michelle hit the nail on the head with their guesses of a tin roof, or corrugated metal etc for this image. The image is cropped from a section of the roof of this very old, and very small garage.As you can see from this sign it is now closed for business A few weeks ago on one of our weekend rambles Deb and I wandered up to Lake Eildon. Rather than taking the sensible way home we continued clockwise around the lake following unsealed mountain roads up over Frenchman's gap and down into the near ghost-town of Woods Point (where the garage resides).

This tiny isolated town was first settled in the 1860s in one of Victoria's many 19th Century gold-rushes.
By 1864 the town had grown until it had 36 Hotels!

Most of the gold played out by the 1890s. Although the last mine did not close until 1963.
Being so isolated and with no other industry the population collapsed to about 40 in the 2006; census around the same number as its previous number of pubs! As it is an Aussie town there is still a pub there today.

With new technology and the high gold price new mines have just started up nearby. so it will be interesting to see if the town grows again.

Scattered all through the bush around the town are the relics of the old days. The remains of a 1940s Blitzwagon (referred to as a Canadian Military Pattern or CMP truck in Canada and the UK)

The main street is lined with tiny miner's cottagesIncluding this one, the smallest miner's cottage I have ever seen! It seems barely big enough to fit in a bed and a chair! I've seen bigger cubby-houses!

The post office.It was late when we arrived so we did not stay long. The road (dirt track really) climbed through switch-backs into the mountains towards Marysville. It was around 160km (100 miles) home about a third over dirt. I am used to dirt roads so I expected it would take about two hours, the road was so bad it took us nearly four hours! Over half the time in that first third.

Just before dark I paused to shoot this rill, which cascaded down the mountainside and under the road.

One of the better sections of the road.Actually, this bit is like a highway compared to most of the rest!

Now finally, in case I don't post again before I should say to all of you; thank you for a great year and have a very Merry Christmas!

5 comments:

Old Kitty said...

Glad you didn't take the sensible route!! Look at this town caught in a time warp! Awww but glad the post office looks like it's still functioning!

I still say it's the underside of a palm leaf! LOL!

Take care
x

Anne Gallagher said...

There are dozens of mining towns like this scattered all over Nevada. It's weird to see history all rusted up like that.

Happy Boxing Day to you and your family!

Al said...

Hi Kitty,
"damn the torpedoes full steam ahead!"
Yes the post office is still operational, how much mail they have can only be guessed.

Hi Anne,
There are dozens of points on maps that were Gold towns in Victoria. But unlike Nevada we have a lot of eucalyptus forest, so abandoned towns tend to disappear in bushfires within a decade or two.

Linda G. said...

You guys have the best weekend rambles! Thanks for sharing them here with us. :)

Kathleen Jones said...

What a wonderful place and lovely pics! Happy Christmas Al!