I was fascinated by all the filled in holes around Bendigo & the graphic in the Museum showing the extent of the mines under Bendigo.

When I was running Steiglitz (a school camp in the Brisbane Ranges, halfway between Geelong and Ballarat) I was very familiar with such holes in the ground; there were five within 100m of my fireplace. None connected with others, because of the nature of the seams on that field but I recall a mining geologist describing the Bendigo field as a comparison. He reckoned there was so much water in the now disused Bendigo mines that, if you installed the biggest water pump ever made and set it running, it would take a year to drop the water level under Bendigo by just one foot.

It made my little "Star of Hope" adits and shaft pale into insignificance.

Cheers, Rowan