Don’t Blow Your Boiler Bates
This cache is accessible on well maintained tracks by two
wheel drive vehicles, to within 120m of the GZ.
Take a short walk from Bates Dam picnic area to viewing
area. You are looking for a 200ml Sistema container hidden in the
usual manner.
Six Mile Creek is a southern tributary of Three Mile Creek,
situated south of Beechworth. Alluvial miners worked at intervals
along Six Mile Creek in search for gold during 1852 with the main
concentration at the Six Mile Creek and Three Mile Creek
junction.
Reef mining occurred at the upper end of Six Mile Creek
from 1866. A party of Frenchmen working on a creek-claim discovered
a very rich surface vein of quartz, which they named Bon’s
Reef (later known as Frenchman’s reef).
The remains of an entrance to
an underground mine which is nearly horizontal from the surface
into a hillside, can be seen on the bank opposite the
viewing area.
Relics still visible include the 12ft
high vertical boiler, which was used to power hydraulic sluicing
equipment (as well as distilling of eucalypt oil, sometime between
the 1930’ and 1950’s). Near the boiler are the remains
of an old stone fireplace, which indicates a hut may have existed
on the site.
Water had to be brought to the site from Stanley
to run the Hydraulic sluicing equipment, via extensive water races;
these open earth channels are still visible along the walking
track.
Although Bates Dam itself appears to be the central focus
of the area, the then Forest Commission only constructed it in the
late 1970’s.
PLEASE BEWARE OF SNAKES IN THIS AREA.