Ej?] Excursion to Bendigo. 10^ 



EXCURSION TO BENDIGO. 



Up to the present year, Bendigo, though possessing many 

 interesting features, had not been selected as a locality for a 

 Club excursion, mainly owing to its distance (ioo miles) from 

 town, and the consequent length of time required for travelling ; 

 but, by taking advantage of the extra trains usually run in 

 connection with the annual railway picnic, it was determined 

 this year to make an attempt to visit the district, more par- 

 ticularly as an enthusiastic country member living in the town 

 was well acquainted with the principal collecting grounds. 

 Hence, on Saturday, 14th September, eight members of the 

 Club, including two ladies, after some varied experiences due 

 to the confusion of many trains and crowds of passengers, 

 ultimately assembled on the Bendigo station, where they were 

 met by our fellow-member, Mr. D. J. Paton, and Miss Paton. 

 The journey to Bendigo was not without interest either to the 

 student of humankind or to the lover of nature in its less highly 

 developed forms. There is no railway section in Victoria of 

 like extent so varied in feature as that to Bendigo. Passing 

 over the almost treeless basaltic plains of Keilor, dotted here 

 and there by old volcanic vents, and occasionally traversed 

 by deep-cut water-courses, the country rises towards the Divide 

 and the heavily-timbered Macedon forest ; thence the course 

 is through mountainous or hilly country, mostly of Silurian 

 and Ordovician sedimentary rocks, in which the quartz reefs 

 occur, interspersed with areas of Plutonic rocks such as granite, 

 granodiorite, and porphyry, and Tertiary deposits, in which 

 the alluvial of the goldfields is deposited. Passing the Divide, 

 one sees the extensive Malmsbury reservoir and the Coliban 

 water-race, which supply Bendigo and the vicinity, as well as 

 a large area of orchards and market gardens north of Castle- 

 maine, with water. The thriving town of Castlemaine, the 

 productive apple orchards of Harcourt, the granitic ranges 

 over which Mount Alexander prominently stands out, are 

 passed through before entering the Big Hill tunnel, at whose 

 further extremity the Ordovician measures again commence in 

 the rich auriferous zones of the Bendigo goldneld. Glimpses 

 of floral luxuriance inviting observation were frequently seen 

 in the railway cuttings or along the slopes of hills adjacent to 

 the permanent way, and spring everywhere clothed mountain, 

 hill, and dale with her verdant or enamelled covering. Before 

 the last members of the scattered contingent were gathered 

 in at Bendigo, and arrangements made for accommodation, it 

 was after mid-day. Then the party proceeded by tram to 

 Back Creek, whence a divergence was soon made into the bush 

 in a southerly direction, along the hills where the outcropping 



