The first in a potential series of caches designed to showcase some of the tourist attractions in Bendigo. They can be completed in real life or by utilising many of the features of Google Earth.
This one will have you travelling from the Central Deborah Gold Mine to Bendigo Pottery.
The cache is located at:
South (G-2)A MB.JLO
East HC(G-1) Q(T-1).(K-2)ET
Central Deborah
S36 45.893
E144 16.238 If you are using GE
Find the 2 dimensional miner holding an compressed air driven drill bit.
A = How many stars/holes in the middle panel?
Central Deborah Gold Mine is a quartz-reef gold mine that operated from 1939 to 1954 and was the last commercial mine to operate in the wealthy Bendigo goldfields.
Central Deborah Gold Mine has 17 levels underground and reaches a total depth of 412 metres, Water levels are maintained by a drainage system managed by Bendigo Mining Ltd., who today use modern methods to mine for gold hundreds of metres beneath Central Deborah!
Sacred Heart Cathedral
S36 45.614
E144 16.406
B = Subtract 64 from the address of the Cathedral in Short Street
Sacred Heart Cathedral is Australia's largest provincial church and is a landmark all over Bendigo. Work was begun on the building in 1896 and enabled the church to give out-of-work miners employment. Like most churches it has an East West orientation and is in the Gothic style.
Alexandra Fountain
S36 45.587
E144 16.680
C= How many old style standing lamps surround the fountain?
Located in the centre of Pall Mall the Alexandra Fountain was named after the Princess of Wales and erected in 1881
Memorial Military Museum
S36 45.518
E144 16.757
DEFG =The year the Honour Roll for the Great Wall was erected.
The magnificent building was funded by public subscriptions and built on the site of the Hustler’s gold mine in 1921. It now houses a range of military memorabilia as well as many personal items.
The Hotel Shamrock
S36 45 508
E144 16.806
H = How many "distinctive corner towers” are there? They are the ones with the flagpoles.
Originating in the early days of the gold rush, the hotel grew out of a restaurant known as the Royal Exchange in 1854. The original building was destroyed by fie in 1857 the second Shamrock was demolished in 1896.
The following year the third building was opened with its Italianate style. A spacious balcony, enhanced throughout with iron lace, provided a ‘promenade’ of some 230 feet and meals could be taken there al fresco.
The hotel has seen some truly famous and infamous visitors since it first opened in 1854. The stunning Lola Montez performed her legendary ‘Spider Dance’ here. Dame Nellie Melba stayed but complained about the Post Office clock striking on the hour. She had locals stop the clock from chiming at midnight. More recently, in 1983 crowds like never before lined the streets below the Shamrock to see Lady Diana Spencer on her only visit to Bendigo.
Bendigo Visitor Information and Interpretive Centre.
Across the road the Bendigo Visitor Information and Interpretive Centre is housed in the former Post Office.
J = How many flights of stairs up to the entrance?
On 30 September 1887, following four years of construction, the Sandhurst Public Offices on Pall Mall were officially opened (during the city’s prosperous gold era), and this grand Renaissance Revival style building operated as the city’s post office for over a century, until Australia Post established their new city facility in more modern premises..
St Kilians Church
S36 45.317
E144 17.058
K = The number of really tall, skinny palm trees that line the Highway in the church’s grounds?
St Kilians is the largest wooden church in Victoria/Australia/the world depending on which source you believe. The interior has a delicate hammer beam nave ceiling and a series of aisled arches. The church site has historic associations with the establishment of the Catholic church in Bendigo, St Killian`s being the second church built in that location and replacing a former stone structure demolished in 1887. The church and its site are closely associated with Father Henry Backhaus, first Catholic priest in Bendigo, who celebrated open air mass on site in 1852, organised the building of both stone and timber churches, ordered the church organ in 1871 from his home town in Germany and had it re-positioned in the timber church from the stone one prior to that Church`s demolition.
Father Henry Backhaus is buried within its grounds.
Lake Weroona
S36 44.976
E144 17.435
L = The number of flagpoles (all of them) behind the Lake Weroona sign at the corner of the Midland Highway (Napier St) and Nolan St.
Weroona is a Dja Dja Wurrung word meaning tranquil and the lake was constructed in 1869. This very popular lake houses the Bendigo Rowing Club and the Boardwalk Restaurant as well as hot dog and donuts stands and a coffee booth.
White Hills Botanical Gardens
S36 43 446
E144 18 616
M= The number of pillars on the entrance gate.
The Botanical Gardens were laid in the 1870s by Ferdinand von Mueller, the Government Botanist who played a prominent role in the early development of Melbourne's Royal Botanical Gardens.
The Gardens were designed in the formal nineteenth century style as a kind of living scientific exhibition, with exotic species arranged according to rigorous principles of classification. Some of the original trees surviving in the Gardens are now extremely rare.
Since von Mueller's time, the Gardens have become a popular picnic spot with recreational facilities including a swimming pool and small menagerie with wildlife and walk-through aviaries.
White Hills Cactus Garden
S36 43.384
E144 18.666
NOP = The street address of the cactus gardens?
In 1933 Dawson's Cactus Gardenwas established by Tom H Dawson and Justin Gill on a suburban Bendigoallotment of just over one acre, which still retained its 1867 residence. They planted half a paddock of Pilocereus seeds imported from the United Statesand within a decade the nursery had become the main supplier of cacti in Victoriaand was exporting some of the more exotic species back to their country of origin. An early catalogue lists over 2,000 species in their nursery and garden. By 1962 they had maintained the largest cactus nursery in Australiafor over 25 years, with a market that covered Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Great Britainand the United States. The garden remained open until the 1980s when it closed after the death of Tom Dawson. It was sold in 1992 and renamed the ' Bendigo Cactus Garden'. A quarantine shed and propagation house have since been demolished, but the Dawson residence (1867) remains.
Bendigo Pottery Tourist Complex
S36 42 458
E144 18.938
QRST = The year Bendigo Pottery was established according to the sign at the entrance
Bendigo Pottery is one of Australia's oldest pottery works and now houses a museum and ceramics school as well as a café. It was first established in 1851 by George Duncan Guthrie who, after failing to find gold in the goldfields, discovered fine white clay instead.
The four-acre complex now includes five rare and historic bottle kilns from 1868, an 1880s two-storey brick stable block, striking beehive kilns, rectangular kilns, related red-brick chimney stacks and a timber crane jib.
Visitors can observe skilled potters demonstrate the art of hand throwing clay on a wheel and purchase a range of ceramic cookware and tableware, in both heritage and contemporary designs.
Around the pottery are other historic buildings including George Guthrie's stables, the original Moliagul store and the Myer Verandah as well as a serene garden with flowers, picnic facilities and playgrounds for children.
Checksum: South = 30, East = 37
You can also check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.