Bendigo and the Victorian gold rush

A boomtown built on the quartz reefs beneath its own streets

Gold was found in Bendigo Creek in 1851 on Dja Dja Wurrung country and turned a sheep station into one of the largest boomtowns in colonial Australia. The news pulled in people from everywhere, Europe and China above all, and intensified the Victorian gold rush that changed the colony. Bendigo became the biggest 19th-century gold-mining economy in eastern Australia, and the money is still visible in the town: the Victorian streetscapes, the public buildings and the gardens were all paid for out of quartz reefs running under the city. It was officially called Sandhurst from 1853 to 1891. The reefs go deep and mining has never entirely stopped, and the Central Deborah mine in the middle of town takes visitors 61 metres underground into the workings.