Goldfields Getaway
30 March, 2021
Waanyarra Mining Area
On the road from Tarnagulla to Dunolly you might wonder about Murderer’s Hill and fail to realise that it was a murder of two white fellas by two or more others. The truth was really never known until a chap confessed. Even then the evidence was...
On the road from Tarnagulla to Dunolly you might wonder about Murderer’s Hill and fail to realise that it was a murder of two white fellas by two or more others. The truth was really never known until a chap confessed. Even then the evidence was not sufficient to get the full truth. Fuller details in my longer story.
So we did a short drive out into the area known today as Waanyarra. It was not the first settlement as that was about four kilometres north west of where the hotel ruins are located. It was also where the first school was built. You take the Cemetery Road and first you cross a ford, this is a bit interesting after heavy rain as a lot of debris was strewn in a lot of places. That debris was piled up to over a metre high, well above the ford – estimate three metres above the concreted rocked crossing.
Travelling along the dirt road takes you past bush and some signs of settlement and soon the cemetery is located. Much praise was given in notes on the area to Ken and Roz Morton for their tireless work in re-establishing the identity of Waanyarra and some of it features, in particular the cemetery and its records. The camping areas called the Recreation Reserve are well laid out for a bush setting and a toilet block is provided. Notes are available – DEI. Location Notice of the early settlement of Waanyarra then the remaining stone structure of the ‘Welcome Inn’ Morton’s Old Hotel circa 1850. It was built by convict Michael Morton as a replica of his home in Ireland and served as a home for eight children, a provisions store and a hotel. A little further up the road and there is the marked site of the second school built in 1877 that increased in size to have 65 students in 1903. It is not clear where the ‘nearby cricket ground’ was located but after you pass the inn and turn around a corner, crossing a creek and start a slight climb, look to your right at a cleared site best option for cricket.
Turn left to go back to the main road. Approximately 200 metres up the road there is a ruin of a structure that may well have been a home. It is built of the local stone too but there are foundations and one assumes the taller bit was a chimney.
So that is Waanyarra as it exists today – a popular free camping site in the central goldfields of Victoria not far from Dunolly, Tarnagulla and Laanacoorie.
