As best friends we have decided to try our luck at Gympie – one of Australia’s richest goldfields. We have heard there is still alot more gold to be found. After talking it through we have decided to go together.

We are still in Sydney and will be leaving next month. We are both very excited but should be careful of hurting ourselves. We will be using these mining methods: cradling, panning, and sluicing. As these methods are quite hard we will give it 110%. We will be travelling by coach then horse. It wil take a long time to get to Gympie as it is approximately 935 km from Sydney Town.

We hope we will find the precious yellow metal, and hopefully come back in one piece; we will come back with at least a couple of nuggets and some gold shavings or specks for our family.

At Gympie we hope we will have a great time and try not to get involved in any conflicts.

Presented by Olivia and Amy Class 5O CCPS

It’s February, 1855, two months after the Eureka Stockade and another Gold Rush has just started. We are deciding to go to a gold field and have confidence that we will come home in a healthy shape and will have found some precious gold.

As good friends, we have decided to partner up. After our recent research on different gold fields, we have chosen Ballarat (which is in Victoria) for the reasons we are about to say. We have also decided to stay for four weeks at the gold field. Ballarat is closer to Sydney compared to Charters Towers and Gympie, which are in Queensland.

After talking to other people and seeing articles in the newspaper, we believe that Ballarat is one of the richest gold fields. One of our friends has lent us a coach to go 375 miles on the way there. For the other 120 miles, we will stop in the nearby town and hire two horses.

While we are at the nearby town, we will be buying 1 large tent for us to share, along with some blankets so we will be warm and comfortable. We will also be taking our own provisions like utensils such as 2 mugs, cutlery (knives, forks etc), a plate each and some spare pairs of clothes. Most importantly, we need of bottles water and some examples of food we will bring are mutton, damper and tea.To cure some injuries we might come across we will bring a first aid kit which includes bandages and cream.

The gold methods we will be using are panning and picking. The equipment needed for these activities is a bucket, a light, a gold pan, a pick, two pairs of gloves and a shovel.

We are worried we might face some possible problems such as running out of water. With all the garbage around, it will be impossible to work because o0f the horrible smell. Because toilets are just holes in the ground, we could catch some contagious diseases.

Now I am going to tell you an interesting fact we have found about Ballarat. Did you know that 600oz of gold was found in 6 days? That proves that there is plenty of gold to be found at the gold field.

As we have already mentioned, we hope to come back home in a healthy shape and we are really confident of striking it rich!

Presented by Simran and Renee Class 5R CCPS

We are packing for our trip and we are confident that we will strike it lucky ‘cause we’ve heard that many miners have struck gold there. Bathurst is 83 miles from here which means that we will have to pack lots of food, some money, tools for mining and camping gear.

Josh and I have hired a stage coach and are on our way to Bathurst. We are now an hour into our trip and suddenly we jolt to a stop; the horses have seen something. It’s a bushranger!

We calm the horses down in an urgent effort to get away and then get them galloping as fast as they can go.

Nick and I escape the bushranger but I know that there are lots more dangers to come on our trip to Bathurst.

Presented by Nick and Josh Class 5O CCPS

It is 1852 and here we are, my best friend and I, on our way to Victoria on our horses to try our luck at Ballarat. We have chosen Ballarat because of Bakery Hill is one of the richest Austrtalian goldfields.

Although it is 497 miles away from Sydney Town, there are still some reasons why we are travelling this far to Ballarat. Firstly we have already talked to miners who have returned from Ballarat. These are the provisions they recommended us to take. A tent which we will share, strong leather boots, utensils, blankets and money. They also advised us to purchase a gold licence each, a pick and shovel, food and a cradle if we have enough money left.

There are many types of mining techniques that Nicky’s uncle told us about like panning, digging, underground mining, washing gravel and cradling but he said that panning and underground mining were the most popular methods in Ballarat.

As we had read in certain daily newspapers, 28 miners had been murdered by police. We were also notified by other miners that there was poor air ventilation, less water for alluvial mining and a large amount of danger.

Although we are afraid of the possible dangers we hope to find gold like John Dunlop and James Regan did last year.

Presented by Nicky and Kudzayi Class 5R CCPS

Penrith PS students have finished their newspaper clippings about notorious Australian bushrangers, which you can now see under the tab PPS Bushranger bounties.

Best wishes,
Mr McLean,
Penrith PS

“Gold, gold strike it rich!!!” yells the town crier. This happened in early 1872. A friend and I wanted to get rich quickly. After much thinking and planning, we, Sir Daniel Divine and Sir Hayden Heroic, decided to go to the most recent found goldfield, Charters Towers, which is located in central Northern Queensland. The goldfield was discovered by a 12 year old Aboriginal boy, Jupiter Mossman in late 1871.

We have spent weeks and weeks planning this excursion. The distance from Sydney Town to Charters Towers is over 900 miles, about three months by foot. The chance of finding gold is very easy since we realised that this goldfield has produced about 320 000 ounces of gold in the very first year.

We will need a tent, two blankets, a billy, tea, flour, mutton, an axe and a tinderbox. Since the Eureka Stockade happened in Ballarat in 1854, we don’t need a gold licence. We will also need a cradle, panning dish, shovel, bucket and a pick, since Charters Towers has lots of ways to mine gold. We will most probably travel by horse and will also try to find work and buy the gear along the way. Our friends, who have already returned from other goldfields, have taught us how to mine.

One of the major problems in going there is the remoteness. Due to the long distance, the transport and supplies will have huge costs that we fear we can’t pay for. Also, we fear that bushrangers or other miners who will steal our loot. Another disadvantage is that we don’t know how to separate other metals from our rich metal substance, since we don’t have the technology to do so. The alluvial goldfields sometimes dry up quite quickly due to the frequent weather changes. However, most of our friends are going to either Bathurst or Ballarat.

We have little money but we will worry about that when we get there. But we have each other for company and will work from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn until we strike it rich. Yee-haa!

Proudly writen by Daniel and Hayden 5/6L CCPS

It’s mid 1850 we are off to Ballarat to try our luck on the goldfields. We are about 3 days into our trip and we are soon leaving Bendigo and walking the rest of the way to Ballarat which is at least a week’s walk.

Last month we thought we would research a few goldfields and we eventually decided on Ballarat because it was one of the closest goldfields and it has lots of extra facilities and entertainment like boxing competitions, grog tents, schools, dancers and a circus!

When we back in Sydney we bought all the necessary supplies such as picks, cradles and pans. We then bought tea, lots of flour to make damper, mutton and 20L of water. We bought a tent, blankets, miners license and once we had all the supplies we bought a 2nd tent with the leftover money. Once we had all the supplies, we came across the problem that we wouldn’t be able to carry it all so we teamed up with a friend to buy a horse and a cart that we will sell when we arrive.

We’ve been travelling for a day now from Bendigo and we are discussing the problems that we are going to face. We have discussed that we had to be aware of bushrangers and greedy miners who might steel our or our gold if we find any that is. We also think that we might not have enough food to last us the entire trip, so we may have to take up a few days work on a farm in exchange for some extra food. We know the Ballarat goldfields will be overcrowded and we may have to be aware of ex-convicts.

We can’t wait to get there and we hope we strike it rich so that we can live happily with our families!

Presented by: Adriel and Mia, 5/ 6L @ CCPS

It’s so hot! I’m thirsty, tired and hungry!

I’m Vanii and this is my friend Jaimi and we’re on our way to Bathurst to try our luck at striking it rich. But at this rate I’ll be surprised if we ever get there because we’ve already walked 23 miles and there’s still another sixty miles to go!

Unfortunately we spent most of our money on provisions which were… a cradle, shovel, and tent for each of us, blankets, clothes, mutton, flour, tea, cutlery, bowls and plates so, we didn’t have enough money to buy a horse which is why we are walking.

Oh look! The compass says that we only have another 13 miles to go but can you imagine if we had to walk all the way from Sydney to Charters Towers or Gympie, we’d have to spend a fortune! We think we made the right decision to go to Bathurst. Don’t you?

Do you know what; I heard that in Ballarat they have really bad smells and crowded areas. I wonder if it is like that in Bathurst? I think I remember reading about Bathurst being crowded but the smells aren’t so bad. But we could lose our miner’s licence because it may fall out of our pockets or we could even get robbed by a bushranger or another miner because they can’t find gold or they have run out of money.

There are several reasons for our decision to go to Bathurst. You don’t need to buy as much mining equipment because you only need a cradle and a shovel. Plus we only have to walk a relatively short distance so we don’t actually need a horse, but it would be nice.

So we think with all the preparation and planning we have done, we will be ready to hit the goldfields and maybe even strike it rich, so then we could ride a horse home! (Laugh)

Oh look there’s the gold fields now!

Presented by Jaimi and Vanii 5/6L @ CCPS

I’m enjoying all the wonderful final presentations from the Caddies Creek students. I just wish we had more time in our library sessions to do lots more blogging!

Regards, Mr McLean
Penrith PS

I would like to say that you have done a fantastic job on posting such excellent facts about the Australian bushrangers! From your information I have learnt heaps of new interesting facts about the Australian bushrangers.

I’d just like to tell you that my partner and I came 4th in our class oral presentation. The 3 best groups got to have their speeches posted onto our Gold Quest blog. Well, we tried our hardest and we were voted 4th best along with other 2 groups.

Thank you for sharing in this blog!
Happy blogging

Elohim Class 6S @ CCPS