One of the tasks the 13 Councils participating in the Central Victorian Goldfields World Heritage Listing Bid are undertaking is to identify special sites and travel journeys that can be further assessed for significance by experts as the Bid develops.
It’s easy to become familiar with a story over time and through that familiarity lose a sense of just how significant that story is. The story of the discovery of the Welcome Stranger is an example of this – the largest alluvial gold nugget discovery in the history of the world.
Two Cornish miners, Deason and Oates, found the huge nugget named the Welcome Stranger while prospecting in the Victorian goldfields on 5 February 1869. It was 61cm long when it was found just below the surface at Moliagul and its net weight was 72.02 kilograms.
Dunolly however is very much part of the Welcome Stranger story, for at the time of the discovery as it was taken there to be weighed. It had to be broken up just to fit on the scales!
The London Chartered Bank of Australia, in Dunolly advanced £9,000 to the two miners. They were finally paid an estimated £9,381 (equivalent to A$666,000 in 2018) for their Welcome Stranger nugget. If my calculations are correct with current gold prices around $86,000 a kilo, the value in today’s terms would be over six million dollars!
Dunolly therefore is very much part of a story which is unique in the history of the world and which we need to tell in engaging and exciting ways to the many who are likely to visit in the future to discover a very special and wonderful place.
