Chewton - Quartz Hill Walk
Quartz Hill Walk is a Grade 3, 3km loop walk which take 1-1.5 hrs. Along well-marked earth and gravel tracks with uneven ground and moderate hills with a few steep sections. Bushwalking experience and a moderate level of fitness recommended.
Trace the path of prospectors who followed the gold up through the gullies into the hills. Starting from the Garfield Water Wheel Trailhead, this loop walk explores the upper reaches of Sailors Gully and Quartz Hill.
Quartz Hill Walk Map
The Quartz Hill Walk is labelled (5) on the map.
Heading north from the trailhead, you briefly follow the same track as the (1) Garfield Mine Heritage Walk, passing where the mine manager, John Ebbott, and his wife Margaret, and their eleven children, lived.
The Ebbott's five-room cottage overlooked a tramway that took the quartz from the mine to the battery beside the water wheel. Close to the junction where the two walks diverge, you can also view the Garfield mineshaft and relics around it (stop one in the track notes for the (1) Garfield Mine Heritage Walk).
Just after the Garfield Mine Shaft, the (5) Quartz Hill Walk heads north-west (left at the junction), then north through Sailors Gully. Where the track divides again, keep to the right. You will return via the left fork later.
Following in the footsteps of the diggers
Thousands of prospectors walked this way, making their homes in these hills. Many lived in canvas tents, cooking on open fires. Gold and water were scarce. Until companies formed to mine the quartz reefs and the water races were constructed, there would have been few more permanent structures.
Machinery and bricks were expensive, so companies usually dismantled their buildings and equipment to be transported and rebuilt at their next mine. While some physical traces of mining can still be seen in the landscape, others have been transformed or obliterated by later phases of mining, forestry or nature.
Some of these traces can be explored on this walk. As you climb Quartz Hill, you pass the ruins of a blacksmith's hut, a puddling machine, and a miner's house.
The stone walls of the blacksmith's but are still partially standing, along with an upright wooden pole that may have been a hitching post for horses to be tied to. Blacksmiths played a vital role on the goldfields. Shoeing horses was only a small part of their work, which also involved making and repairing mining equipment, such as picks, pans, buckets, hammers, boilers, grinding and winding machinery.
Further along is the remains of a puddling machine, used to separate soil from gold more quickly than by panning. Diggers constructed circular ditches with an island in the middle, often lined with wood. On the island was a pivot post that supported a long pole pulled around the edge of the ditch by a man or a horse.
Miners filled the ditch with water and soil, and paddles or iron rakes stirred the water to separate the soil from any rocks or gold it contained. When the muddy water (slurry) drained away, the miners could retrieve the heavy gold that had sunk to the bottom.
The steepness of the track increases as you leave Sailor's Gully. Near the head of the gully are the remains of a miner's hut. The stone walls have mostly collapsed but would likely have been capped by a canvas or bark roof. Miners' homes were modest by today's standards, consisting of only one or two rooms and no bathroom.
During the early goldrush, stone homes were rare. A simple canvas or bark home could be taken apart, picked up, and easily moved to a new location. As quartz mining began to replace alluvial mining, miners became more likely to stay in one place for longer, and stone fireplaces and homes became more common.
There were no guarantees of striking it rich, and relatively few people did. To be successful, you needed to be adaptable. A builder might become a miner, then a sheep shearer or carpenter. A family might build a mill to cut timber but end up making flour instead.
Necessity, the mother of invention
According to Albert Einstein, "The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." and success on the goldfields depended on it. The methods, technology and resources needed to extract gold changed significantly, depending on whether you were searching for gold in the soil (known as alluvial gold) washed down into the creek beds and flats) or in the quartz reefs it had formed in.
Alluvial gold could be found by prospectors working alone or with a few friends. Men worked their way up the gullies, panning or digging into the creek beds with little more than a gold pan. With a few more resources or a friend or two, prospectors could shovel soil into cradles, or tubs, or construct puddling machines to speed things up.
A steady supply of water allowed them to wash larger volumes of soil more quickly, and creeks were often diverted to enable ground sluicing. Miners worked their way up into the hills, searching for the quartz reefs the gold had washed down from.
Removing the riches from the reefs
Extracting gold from quartz is challenging. Although miners could sometimes do well by chipping away at surface quartz with picks, it was hard, slow work. If the quartz lay below ground, shafts had to be dug to access the reef from above, or adits (tunnels into the side of hills) and stopes to access the reef from below. Lifting and winding mechanisms had to be constructed to remove material or drain water from the shafts.
After extracting blocks of quartz from the reef, it had to be crushed to powder with hammers or in grinding pans. This was easier after roasting the quartz in kilns, which made the quartz more brittle.
Most of these technologies would have been used in this area at one time or another, however later waves of mining and different techniques used can make it hard to identify their traces.
There was only so much success you could have on your own. Quartz mining on a larger scale required money and cooperation. Companies began to form, as miners pooled their resources to scale up their efforts. Steam-powered pumps and winding machinery made it possible to dig deeper shafts, pump out water, and bring up more quartz for crushing. Crushing batteries driven by steam or water wheels made breaking up the quartz much quicker and easier.
When you reach the track junction, you can turn south-west (left) to stay on the (5) Quartz Hill Walk and loop back towards the Garfield Trailhead, or turn north-east (right) to continue on the (6) Welsh Village Walk. The Little Quartz Hill Reef Company operated just to the north of this junction. The (5) Quartz Hill Walk heads south-west, curving around Little Quartz Hill towards Quartz Hill.
From golden beginnings to iron-clad success
Just to the west of where the walk leaves Toby's Track and turns south (left) onto Quartz Hill Road, close to the crown of the hill, lies a large open cut mine. This, and the piles of quartz removed from it, are among the few remaining traces of the rich and colourful history of mining on Quartz Hill.
In 1852, this outcrop of quartz was being broken off, roasted, and crushed with hand-hammers. This crude method of working was hard work but could yield rich returns.
Among the lucky ones, were two brothers from Northern Ireland, David and James Thompson. They took over an abandoned 25ft (7.6m) hole on Quartz Hill in 1855, and only dug another 3ft (1m) until they hit very rich gold.
Their success on Quartz Hill encouraged them to mine elsewhere, and their fortune proved lucky for the town of Castlemaine too. The Thompson brothers erected a flour mill on the corner of Kennedy and Parker streets in 1867, followed by a foundry (iron and brass works) in 1875.
The Thompsons' adaptability and willingness to diversify, grew the business into one of the largest engineering firms in the State, employing close to 400 people and significantly contributing to the economy of Castlemaine.
The foundry designed and produced a wide range of mining machinery, sluicing and dredging equipment, pumping plants, steam locomotives, railway crossings and munitions. The foundry still operates today.
Descending Quartz Hill, which is moderately steep in places, you re-join the track you left earlier, and retrace your steps back to the Garfield Trailhead. Keep right (south) at the junction where you began the loop.
Access for Dogs:
Dogs may be walked on a lead on the tracks around the Garfield Water Wheel, including the (5) Quartz Hill Walk. They must be kept on a lead and under control at all times. Please collect and remove your dog's droppings for the sake of other visitors and to avoid stress to native animals.
Please note that the Nimrod Reef Mine and Welsh Village is a designated Special Protection Area due to its historic significance, so the (6) Welsh Village Walk is not marked or signed through that area. Dogs and bikes are prohibited.
Safety:
The Castlemaine Diggings are a heavily mined landscape and contain a variety of ongoing hazards, including uneven and unstable ground, mineshafts, open cuts, quarries, and mine tailings. For your own safety, please stay on mapped tracks and supervise children. Comply with local signs and do not climb over or around barriers and fences or on the stone foundations of the water wheel.
Location
Leanganook Track, Chewton 3451 Map
Web Links
→ Quartz Hill Walk and Welsh Village Walk Heritage Notes (PDF)
