Mount Buninyong Scenic Reserve History
An excellent history of the beautiful Scenic Reserve on Mount Buninyong, by academics Jaimie Watson and Ian D.Clarke, tracing its evolution
from an Aboriginal cultural site into today’s popular recreational tourist attraction.
Click “Mount Buninyong Scenic Reserve” to open the article by Jaimie Watson and Ian D. Clark.
(Copy provided courtesy of the authors)
Union Jack Education Area
Gold was first discovered there in January 1857. In that month, eight miners found a 28lb [11.8kg] nugget. The men were from England, Ireland & Scotland, hence the area was named Union Jack and has now become a training area for students from the Ballarat, now Federation University, and renamed the Union Jack Education Area, under the control of Parks Victoria.
The NW corner of Warrenheip and Russell Streets was the site of the Robert Burns Hotel, shifted there in 1857, from the Terrible Lead in the White Horse Ranges, near Sebastopol, to service the miners at Union Jack. The Hotel, on Union Jack Creek, listed its location as Union Jack. The hotel, no longer there, advertised visits to Fern Gully which was in the Education Jack Education Area. Unfortunately there are no longer any ferns left.
The Education Area, located at the end of Elizabeth St, Buninyong, covers 72 hectares and provides a home for a diverse variety of flora and fauna, and is littered with deep shafts and other evidence of a long history of mining.
There is a self guided walk of 26 stations, each describing an aspect of the Area. This is divided up into a short walk of 40 minutes and a long walk of about 2 hours. The long walk includes a visit to the site of the Locomotive Mine.
This mine was the location of the death of two miners in 1933. Albert Berger and Arthur Dunstan were working in a horizontal drive 66 feet from the surface of the 100 foot deep mine, when they were both overcome by ‘bad air’. Dunstan was seen falling to the bottom of shaft. Despite the efforts of John Silvey and William Sanford, the men’s lives were ‘pronounced extinct’ by the time they were retrieved. Both Silvey & Sandford were awarded medals in recognition of their bravery.