On the road to ...Eldorado

Tuesday 5th May 2015

We left the lovely Omeo Caravan Park, and headed out on the Great Alpine Road.  The weather was cold and drizzly and as we got higher up the fog increased.  We stopped at Dinner Plain Ski Resort for a quick look around but decided to keep going and have a coffee break when we got to Mt Hotham.

  As we continued the fog got worse and then it started raining and then hail and to make it worse the road was very winding and the visibility was only about 5 meters and at times it seemed even less.  We contacted Jeannie & David on the CB to see how they were going and we decided to stop at Mt Hotham, but the fog was so thick that we couldn't find the entrance so we had to keep going until we found somewhere to pull off. 



After we  pulled over, David told us he was having a bit of trouble towing his van because of visibility but we all decided it was best to keep going slowly and get off the mountain as it appeared that the weather wasn't going to get any better for some time.

Very low visibility - a bit scary



Glad I wasn't driving!

 .

 

We arrived in Harrietville and we were all very relieved to be out of the fog and continued on to Bright for some lunch.



Beautiful autumn trees in Bright

 

 After lunch we headed to Eldorado to see The Cock's Dredge.

 

 




The Cocks' Dredge, Eldorado

An endless belt with about 110 steel buckets did

the actual dredging. The buckets, carried on a

moveable arm called the bucket ladder, cut

into the alluvium (gold and tin bearing earth) with

an action similar to a slow moving chainsaw. 

 

Eldorado was named after the legend of El Dorado in 1840 by William Baker, the name he used for his run. Even though the name refers to a land abounding in gold there was no gold found in Eldorado until the 1850s when it became a thriving gold rush town. Eldorado Post Office opened on 1 August 1861.

We had been to Eldorado before but somehow missed seeing the Dredge so when David & Jeannie told us about it Ron was determined to see it, and it was amazing, such a huge piece of machinery,].
 

 




The Dredge