Take a step back in time and travel through Victoria’s high country gold legacy townships. Starting from Myrtleford, travel through Yackandandah and Beechworth before ending at Tarrawingee.
Myrtleford is the gateway township towards the epicentre of the high-country gold rush towns to the north. Myrtleford wasn’t part of the gold rush itself but was the point of supplies and connected by railway to Wangaratta and Bright.
Head north-east to Yackandandah where gold was discovered in 1852. Rich with alluvial gold lying in the gravels of Yackandandah Creek, the area became crowded with gold diggers within months. At the foothills of the Victorian Alps, Yackandandah not only preserves its 19th-century charm with heritage buildings, stone gutters, and intact civic structures, it lives its history and continues to yield fine flakes and occasional nuggets.
If Yackandandah represents the grassroots charm of the golden heritage, Beechworth is the anchor of golden authority. Beechworth is the goldfields capital and administrative heart and one of Victoria’s richest goldfields of the 1850s. With over 30 buildings listed with the National Trust, it is one of Australia’s best preserved gold towns. Look around the town and the granite streetscapes, wrought iron balconies, and several civic buildings present its history today. Government buildings include the Courthouse, Telegraph Office, Gold Warden’s Office, and a rare surviving symbol of colonial policy towards Chineses miners, the Chinese Protectorate Office.
The Chinese Protectorate Office is the only surviving building of its kind in Australia. It is symbolic of the history of Chinese miners who played a significant role in the Australian gold rushes, and also of migrants and their discrimination.
The drive finishes at Tarrawingee, a waypoint village of Wangaratta located on routes to Beechworth and Eldorado gold diggings. The town commenced with optimism of the railway passing through it, with the Plough Inn and Stables built in 1864 and Carinya Ladson’s Store built in the 1860s. The railway never arrived, instead bypassing the town, causing the town’s potential growth to fail.