In Search of a Long Lost Mineral Spring

Here's an example of what I consider to be 'field rambling' as distinct from bushwalking. Recently I went looking for a mineral spring in the Fryers Ranges in Central Victoria. In our region there are quite a number of springs, many of which are no longer maintained or much utilised. In this particular case this was an apparently lost mineral spring I found marked on a 1914 Touring map of Central Victoria.  It caught my curiosity because I'd criss-crossed this area of the Fryers Ranges over a number of years and had never noticed it. 

    The old tourist map has been a rewarding source of information over the last year or so. It has alerted me to a number of features that have disappeared over time. Old tracks to forgotten tourist spots have gone the way of the dinosaur, replaced by tarred roads leading to more settled places. The mineral spring in question was popular enough at the time to be listed on this touring map and yet appears to be unknown these days. 

    Once again Google Earth came in handy in locating what I thought was the most likely gully matching the location marked on the very spartan touring map. It was in a creek (once called Stony Creek), a tributary of  Columbine Creek (apparently once known as Boughyard Creek). But given the creek bed is pretty much completely dry, the mineral spring was very easy to spot- the water bubbling from the side of the bank is almost iridescent, so high in iron content it looks as if it might be possible to pick it up with a magnet. I'll leave it to others to taste it.

    At one stage this had been a popular spot, as a stone wall has been built to protect the banks of the creek.  

    Nevertheless this primitive and undeveloped mineral spring  gives some idea of how such springs must have appeared to the local indigenous clan, the Dja Dja Wurrung, and later, to early European explorers. 

    The spring can be accessed via an unnamed track off Old Hunters Lane, Drummond North.