Around Every Bend, There's a New Discovery

Around every bend there's a new discovery.

After living in Bayside Mentone for over thirty years, thing become same, same. Living here in Victoria's Central Highlands, every drive, every bike ride hits you with new discoveries. 

Only last Wednesday I dropped off the car for some minor work. Our nearest Citroen specialist is 40 kms away so I normally put the bike in the car and ride home. On this occasion I decided to take an alternative road and discovered an oasis in the parched land of the Castlemaine/Chewton district. I decided that I wanted to show Sue some of the delightful scenes that I discover on my morning bike rides so this Friday afternoon I retraced my ride in the car. She was quite astounded by what see saw and sat on a raise piece of granite taking in the peacefulness of the lake, the ducks, the people in kayaks and also chatting with the passing walkers. Yes, people stop for a chat in the country unlike city people who are in a rush to somewhere else. (We were them until recently)

The Expedition Reservoir was formed during the 1860s to supply water to the Forest Creek water wheel battery used to crush the quartz about 10 kms further down the gully. The name came from the Scottish Explorer's expedition through the area. Major Thomas Mitchell's discovery of the area as you can see from the map below takes in the town we currently live, Kyneton. Mt Macedon nearby which he named and the area of Castlemaine/Chewton.

When we were at the reservoir some local cyclists informed us of a quartz crushing battery and how to get there - we took the road, a corrugated gravel path that took us deep into the rocky, desolate forest of the past gold fields of the 1850s to discover the ruins of the structure you see below.
The water wheel was supposedly the largest in the state with a diameter of 72 feet.

I'll try to get more of our discoveries on the Blog but for the time being, we seemed to be just absorbing the drives that bring a new discovery around every bend.