Erica to the Mornington Peninsula via Walhalla

Woke up in Erica to one of those rural vistas (see below) that was just too idyllic for words so I headed out of town to find some breakfast. Erica is a small logging community of about 150 people that happens to be located in some truly gorgeous countryside. The next town, Rawson, was a six minute drive and is considerably larger than Erica. Off I trotted in search of my morning sustenance, but due to lack of interest Rawson was closed. Sheepishly I returned to Erica and spent a whopping $ 8.50 on a huge breakfast from the local General Store. It sold firewood, managed the mail, it's a cafe, is the local tourist information office and essentially the place that run's Erica. To top it all off it made great coffee.

View from the Erica Motel

I'd had dinner in the pub the night before and made short work of a bottle of red. Didn't feel a thing the next morning, my recent training must be helping. Headed out to a little township called Walhalla. What a find this place was. A truly unique and interesting excursion.

The town itself was founded sometime in the 1860's when alluvial gold was found in what is know known as Stringer's Creek. It didn't take long and there were 4 significant gold mines in operation and the population swelled to 4,500. A few people have left since then. Current population is now 22 and in my few hours there I met eight of them (including a couple of real eccentrics). In fact the cemetery was the most populated place in town, it still has 1,300 residents. 

Its about a 2.5 hour drive from Melbourne (210 kilometres away) and so is just a little too far to make it a comfortable day trip from the big smoke. Despite all of that these 22 people have set about restoring the town and turning it into a credible tourist attraction.

Walhalla Fire Station - Built Across Stringer's Creek

The Only Brick Building in Town - Now Windsor B & B

Band Stand

Walhalla Railway Station

Walhalla Main Street

Walhalla is pronounced like Valhalla but with a "W" and is named after the first mine (it was previously known as Stringer's Creek). I am not sure why it has a "W" and not a "V". Maybe when they named it they weren't sure how to spell, could be the change in spelling was some sort of homage to the original or might just have been that they had a speech impediment. Either way it still sounds somewhat comical to the ears when said aloud (Madeleine Kahn in an old Mel Brooks movie would riff on it endlessly). Anyway it was well worth the trip down the winding mountain road to check this place out and is well worth a look if you get the opportunity and are in to this type of thing.

I was there on a Monday so not a lot was going on, but I did have a wander through the cemetery. Lots of men dying young in the mines. There are 50 recorded deaths in one mine alone with a variety of ways you could check out, hammer blow to the head from a fellow miner, kicked to death by a horse, there were two suicides and off course mine collapse was a big killer. If you didn't die in the mine you would probably get what is now known as silicosis (from the silicon particles in the air) and if you made it past 35 (highly unlikely) you were considered to be too old and got a job topside. 

I did a tour of the Long Tunnel Gold Mine (you know how you often get samples when you tour factories?). I was the only one on it so monopolised the time of the lovely Naomi who answered all my dumb questions. This thing went down 1,000 metres (we made it about 300 metres in and only about 3 floors down). It produced 42 tonnes of gold in its time (in today's money that's about $2,400.000,000.00). It averaged 40 grams of gold per tonne of ore extracted. In its time you had to extract 7 grams per tonne to make it worth while and today they would go after it with with only 1 gram per tonne. 

The mine actually closed not because it wasn't producing gold (it is believed that there is still plenty of gold to be found). The biggest issue was getting fuel for the boilers. It required 35 tonnes of timber a week to keep them going. This let you pump out the underground water and raise and lower the cages full of ore and miners. Once it became uneconomical to log the timber to fire the boilers the mine was shut. So in 1911 when the rail came to town (normally something that drives growth) it got there just in time to help carry out all the saleable mining equipment, people's timber houses and in the end the people themselves. 

The town went in to decline and became a ghost town. In the 1970's some interested locals started the process of restoration. Even now everyone is on tank water, they only got electricity 12 years ago, there is no TV reception, no mobile phone coverage and the only internet you get is satellite. You cant even drink the water from Springer's Creek (there is 7 times the maximum acceptable level of arsenic in it because its still washing through the water table after it was released as a natural by product of the mining). In spite of all this Walhalla has been lovingly restored by its residents. It is quaint, charming and everywhere you look you can see care and attention to detail. On weekends they have a tourist railway running and there is a calendar of events with a variety of activities on offer, well worth checking out. 

It headed out of Walhalla at about 3.00pm to Rosebud on the Mornington Peninsula. Martha led the way taking me through Moe, Drouin, Lang Lang, Koo Wee Rup, Tooradin and finally Rosebud. Nothing along the way caught my eye so I cant tell you how fabulous or not these places were. Going to spend the day pottering around the Mornington Peninsula then put the Vectra and I on the The Spirit of Tasmania. Will wake up in Devonport tomorrow.