Research Guides: Gold miners and mining: Getting to the goldfields

Getting to the goldfields

Ergo: transport describes the process of getting to the goldfields
eGold: social and domestic life discusses:
- The journey from Melbourne to the diggings
- The journey from the United Kingdom to Australia
- Cobb & Co. coaches
- Gold escorts
- Railways
Murray's guide to the gold diggings: where they are and how to get to them is a guide book from 1852
Life on the goldfields: on the road includes quotes from diggers' diaries describing their journey to the diggings
Gold! Immigration and population includes information about Chinese migration and 'changes to the law which made it impossible for Chinese miners to arrive at Victorian ports. As a consequence many Chinese miners travelled hundreds of miles overland from South Australia to the diggings in Victoria'
Overland gold looks at how people travelled from South Australia to the Victorian goldfields in 1851-52.

Images from the Library's collections

Watercolour painting, Shows rear view of men with swags, kettle and gun, one accompanied by a dog, all walking on a country road behind a laden horse and cart.

Diggers on way to Bendigo H86.7/26

Photograph, Coach is packed with equipment, chinese passengers inside and on top of Cobb & Co. coach, 1835.

Chinese leaving for the diggings. Cobb & Co. coach, Castlemaine H2407

Lithograph, print, Shows a bullock wagon bogged in the creek up to its axle, while men with whips urge the team on to greater efforts. A dead horse lies on the edge of the water, and on the right a man has been thrown out of his dray into the water when his horse stumbled

Crossing the creek at Bacchus' Marsh H2921

Watercolour painting, Buckland hotel, post office, bridge

The Buckland near the camp H38465

Maps

Useful maps of Victoria showing the routes to major goldfields:

State Library Victoria

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