Daily Photo – The Goulburn River
I spent an afternoon near the banks of the Goulburn River, which has the honour of being northern Victoria’s largest river. Yet this peaceful stretch of water was once one of the busiest crossroads in colonial Victoria. Long before Shepparton existed as the quiet city it is now, when gold was discovered and everyone went bonkers heading for Victoria’s northern goldfields, sooner or later every miner came to a single river crossing known as McGuire’s Punt. It was a simple and crude, yet effective, set-up, with a decidedly rickety and primitive punt that carried people from one muddy bank to the other by way of a rope.
That also made it an ideal place for the less respectable members of society to take advantage of the busy crossing. Miners carrying pokes full of gold dust, merchants with wagons of supplies, wandering gamblers, escaped convicts, bushrangers, and every variety of drifter all passed through here, while others looked for an opportunity to relieve someone of their possessions.
These days the Goulburn drifts quietly past towering river gums, yet it’s fascinating to think that this tranquil river once held up the entire traffic of the Victorian gold rush. Before there was a town, before there were bridges, there was simply a river, a punt, and a queue of hopeful souls waiting to cross.
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