Early Settlement Axe find

[Tommi]

When I was wee little lad I use to go bushwalking by myself here in Australia; One day I came across an amazing spot in the middle of the bush, I saw a wooden floor raised above the ground and also old wooden barrels plus wooden seats and benches and those wooden poles erected to tie horses too. It was like walking back in time.
I found an old axe which I took home; all this talk recently about ghost towns reminded me of the place and my find.
I believe the spot was a timber workers camp or maybe an old penal settlement from early 1800's to 1900's.
Attached are the photos of the axe head - the original handle rotted away.

Note the condition of the steal and the process it was made must of been crude as there are bubble holes or dents on both sides of the axe faces.

[Nana40]

Neat find Tom! Even as a wee little lad you were a treasure hunter!

[Tommi]

When I found that spot the treasure bug bit me.

Its a shame that the area I found the axe in was burnt down and cleared and now its a suburb. The area still has a little bit of bush land but due to the amount of new activity(15yrs odd) in the area the bush will have many junk items making the good ol colonial stuff hard to find.

[Postalrevnant]

Perhaps there will still be a bit of colonial stuff awaiting you after you clean out the trash pile up.

Postalrevnant

[Tommi]

The whole site is now cleared and houses are everywhere, I was heart broken when I drove upto a street that was suppose to be a dead end at the bush .... but it kept going straight through the area and houses are now sitting on potential historical artifacts, one will never know.

[tinpan]

Hi Tommi,nice relic and thanks for the info you sent me,mate

tinpan

[Tommi]

Hey if your interested I can send you photos of the maps - I have the following
Victoria geological map
Contour plan of the Ballarat east gold field
Creswick, Bendigo, Bethanga and Warrandyte gold field maps.

Lemme know.

[tinpan]

Hi tommi,well Creswick once had 143 hotels and a whole town there once and little remains, just about one fifth of was once there.That would be a treasurehunters dream and thanks i would like the mine survey as i have one old news paper that gives the lay out of the old town.see i can piece a few bits of imfo together.creswick is about 80 kms from me.Got my hands full with 3 other projects at the moment and wish to finish them first.Now Creswisk would make a grand T.N meet.Lots of public land and has been hunted a bit over the years for gold and bottles.i believe that coins and relics still lay around the place. Big time .Just me folks theres 600 square miles of gold feilds and more than 50 gold mining towns.Some are lost.


tinpan

[Tommi]

Haven't posted it yet Tinpan, boss keeping me busy with non-importent-non-treasure stuff


Will it do it soon for you

[Burdie]

I know how yo feel Tinpan about going back to a place and see how it has changed. Nice axe though.

Burdie