A brief introduction....
Welcome to Omeo! Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Many who came here in the mid 1800's came here with exactly that in mind. This cache is a short tour of some sites of significance to Omeo from a historic perspective. A quiz about the sites as you go will see you at the final cache location in an interesting spot. There's no 50/50 or need for phone a friend, lock in your answers and away you go. The determination of the miners to try and make their fortune is illustrated around the time, and the fact that they some made it is also evident.
From the SMH.com.au website (edited - I corrected their mistakes):
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Omeo Post Office with the town in the background
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Omeo
Historic goldmining town in the Great Divide at the between Gippsland & the alps.
Omeo is an old goldmining town in the mountain country 97 km north of Bruthen and 400 km north-east of Melbourne via the Princes and Omeo Highways. Now a quiet and sleepy township of around 300 people, based on cattle, sheep and timber, it was once a rugged, unruly frontier town. Indeed, the first magistrate, Judge Browne, better known as early Australian novelist Rolf Boldrewood (famous for his novel Robbery Under Arms), regarded the Omeo goldfields as the roughest in Australia.
The area was first sighted by Europeans when pioneer naturalist, John Lhotsky, claimed, in 1834, to have seen, from the southern alps, a wide plain that the Aborigines called 'Omeo'. The indigenous peoples gathered quartz crystals, which they believed to possess supernatural qualities, from the Omeo River. The Omeo Highway follows the route they used for making contacts with other groups.
In 1835 George McKillop journeyed south from Monaro in New South Wales in search of new pastures. Another member of the party, James McFarlane, returned and founded what was probably the first cattle station in Victoria - Omeo B at what is now Benambra - which he sold in 1859. In his novel, Providence Ponds (1950), Stanley Porteous described the sight which greeted the original settlers:
The creek valleys narrowed, the forests closed in, until suddenly the Omeo basin fairly burst upon us - an open treeless plain, encircled by a rim of mountains upon which the peaks of Mount Tambo and the Three Brothers stood out distinctly....from its expanse came the shimmer of two lakes, one large, one tiny.'
John Pendergast arrived with his two brothers in 1836 or 1837 and established the Mount Leinster station. His family, Welsh immigrants who had settled for several generations in Ireland, are perhaps the most prominent pioneers of the district as the other early families soon moved further south. Pendergast's descendants still live at Pendergast's Court. A hut from the property, built in 1868, is now on display in Omeo's historical park in the centre of town.
Another early settler, John Hyland, settled west of Morass Creek but sold his run to Edward Cooke in 1841. Cooke bred thoroughbred horses for the army of India and shipped his cattle to Van Dieman's Land by way of Port Albert. He later sold Hinnomunjie station, from two Aboriginal words supposedly meaning 'no fish', and bought a run at Holey Plains, near today's Rosedale.
Angus McMillan rested in the Omeo vicinity in 1839 while following an Aboriginal track south to establish Numblamunjie station on behalf of Lachlan Macalister. The name was changed to Ensay in 1844 by Archibald Macleod, after an island off the coast of Scotland. McMillan used the station as a base for his extensive and ground-breaking explorations of Gippsland to the south.
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The road between Bruthen and Omeo
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During the 1840s squatters moving south into Gippsland used the area as a transit camp. However, the history of Omeo changed in 1851 when pioneering geologist, Reverend W.B. Clarke, while travelling south from Sydney on an expedition, discovered gold at Livingstone Creek, named after another member of McKillop's original party.
Two years later, when the population of Gippsland was little more than 300, there were 70 men, all living in 30 tents, panning for alluvial gold along Livingstone Creek. However, its isolation and the mountainous terrain ensured that development and population growth remained slow. Indicative of the difficulties was the fact that the 80-km journey from Ensay to Bairnsdale took four days on horseback. It was also a 9-day walk from the goldfields in the Ovens Valley. The population was still no more than 600 in 1863. Movement increased when a track was cut between Port Albert and Bairnsdale. An influx of miners occurred and new goldfields opened at Gibbo, Dry Gully, Cassilis, Dartmouth, Brookville, the Wombat and Stirling. The unruliness of the situation was not helped by the fact that no police were present at the site until 1858. Initially, the gold warden from Yackandandah only visited the field twice a year.
The goldrush reached its peak in the 1860s. Land settlement began in 1870 and Omeo was declared a municipality in 1872. A Wesleyan Church was opened in 1870, with the Roman Catholic Church following in 1874, the Church of England in 1892 and the Presbyterian Church in 1894. However, the stock of alluvial gold began to disappear and with it went many of the miners. Chinese people moved into the area to work the tailings and established market gardens.
A new boom began when reef gold was located at Sunnyside, Dry Gully, Glen Wills and Cassilis. Heavy machinery to work the reefs was hauled over the mountains by bullock teams and hydraulic dredges were in operation in the 1880s. However, this supply too was soon exhausted and the fields were abandoned by the start of the First World War. The town suffered earthquakes in 1885 and 1892 and considerable damage was caused by the infamous 'Black Friday' bushfires of 1939.
Although tin was mined at Glen Wills, Pilot Creek and Limestone it was cattle and sheep which came to the fore with the end of the gold days and cattle are still put out to pasture on the high plains every summer. The annual sale, each March, of "cold country" herefords is a major event on the local calendar. A rodeo is also held each year.
Incidents of the Omeo gold days provided source material for two landmark novelists of Australian literature, Henry Kingsley and Rolf Boldrewood. In The Hillyars and the Burtons (1865), Kingsley wrote of a number of diggers who died crossing the Great Dividing Range while returning from a futile rush from Beechworth to the Omeo area in 1854, having heard the tale that year at Beechworth from survivors of the trek. Boldrewood wrote of the lawlessness of the area in Robbery Under Arms (1888) and in Nevermore, where he dealt with the rustling of the Kelly Gang (the Lawless brothers in the novel), the murder of Cornelius Green (Con Gray) and the celebrated case of Tichborne, the heir to his family's title and estates in England, who disappeared in the goldfields.
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A delightful wander around Omeo will take you to many of the sites of significance and hopefully leave you a little wiser.
To find the cache you will have to undertake a small quiz. I have provided the co-ords for all the waypoints. You will need the answers from the questions for each to work out the final coords. The answers will be found on the abundance of interpretive signs which have been placed around the town as part of the Great Alpine Road tourism encouragement.
The cache.....
To complete the cache you must answer the questions to determine the final coordinates of the cache. Correct answers using the information will be required to complete the final coordinates. Collect the figure/letter substitutions using the multi choice answers below to complete the cache as you go.
Location 1 - The CFA Station
S37°05.874'
E147°35.684'
At the location in question you will find a sign out the front of the modern day fire station.
Opposite here there were several businesses and the masonic hall, only one of which still stands. The town's long historical relationship with fire took care of the other two. Shannon's operated one of the stores for many years.
From the information on the sign answer the following:
They ordered their stock for delivery by horse or bullock team from:
A. Sydney warehouses
B. Sale & Bairnsdale
C. Melbourne Department Stores
D. Melbourne markets & wholesalers
If answer is:
A W = 3
B W = 4
C W = 5
D W = 6
Location 2 - The Manse
S37°05.840'
E147°35.701'
High on the hill overlooking this point is one of Omeo's heritage homes. Now in private ownership it has changed hands several times and has been owned by several denominations.
From the information on the sign answer the following:
The house was given the name "The Manse" by the:
A. Catholics
B. Protestants
C. Anglicans
D. Presbyterians
If answer is:
A E = 2
B E = 3
C E = 4
D E = 5
Location 3 - Sign for a bank & the Lands Department buildings
S37°05.959'
E147°35.605'
At this location you will find yourself at a sign detailing information for the above buildings. An interesting point left off the sign, is that the famous botanist who named so much of the alpine flora mentioned here was single handedly responsible for the introduction of the blackberry to Australia, so that the colonials may have jam. For a famous botanist he sure made some dumb decisions.
From the information on the sign answer the following:
The bank in question which currently houses a real estate business was once the:
A. Colonial Bank
B. Commercial Bank
C. State Bank
D. Commonwealth Bank
If answer is:
A X = 8
B X = 6
C X = 9
D X = 7
Location 4 - Sign for a flour mill, professionals rooms & bank.
S37°05.965'
E147°35.607'
Looking across the street you can still see two of the three buildings mentioned here. One has long gone. Of the remaining buildings both look as they did a hundred or so years ago with only minor alterations. Many bits of them are original. One of the original features of the building on the right is a window.
From the information on the sign answer the following:
What does it say on the window today?
A. Colonial Bank
B. Gold Buyer
C. Savings & Loan
D. Westpac
If answer is:
A F = 4
B F = 3
C F = 2
D F = 1
Location 5 - The Post Office.
S37°05.950'
E147°35.622'
The Post Office was an integral part of the towns social fabric. From here news came & went from far & wide - news of successes beyond prospectors wildest dreams and failures beyond imagination; births, deaths and disasters no doubt also. From the information on the sign answer the following:
The cost of construction of the Post Office was?
A. 965 pounds
B. paid for by a successful miner
C. paid by the Gold Commisioner
D. 1068 pounds
If answer is:
A Y = 2
B Y = 3
C Y = 4
D Y = 5
Location 6 - Commissioners Gully.
S37°06.030'
E147°35.567'
Also on the sign describing Commissioner's Gully you will find information on the power house. The power house generated Omeo's Electricity for over 30 years. From the information on the sign answer the following:
Omeo got street power from the State Electricity Commission in?
A. 1965
B. 1963
C. 1967
D. 1969
(Carefully answer this one - you could easily make a mistake)
If answer is:
A G = 3
B G = 4
C G = 5
D G = 6
Location 7 - Historic Park.
S37°06.037'
E147°35.531'
There are many items of interest here, not least of which is the museum which may distract you for a while.
The construction of the court house commenced a new era of law and order in a town that was previously famous for it's lack of it. So famous was Omeo for it's lawlessness and shennanigans that it was used to base a famous Australian novel on. From the information on the sign answer the following:
The first prisoners in Omeo were contained using what method?
A. placed in stocks
B. kept in a log gaol
C. chained to a tree
D. in the watchhouse cell
If answer is:
A Z = 8
B Z = 1
C Z = 2
D Z = 4
Location 8 - Golden Age Hotel.
S37°06.046'
E147°35.478'
As mentioned earlier Omeo has had a disastrous history with fire. The Golden Age Hotel has been part of that history. From the information on the sign answer the following:
The Golden Age has been rebuilt having been destroyed by fire how many times?
A. Two
B. Three
C. Four
D. Five
If answer is:
A H = 1
B H = 2
C H = 3
D H = 4
Compiling the information attained during your short walk will give you the necessary numbers to complete the cache which lies a short walk away in a fascinating spot that is central to the towns history.
The EPE was poor on the day the cache was placed and 5 sets of readings were averaged to get the final location. Just in case a detailed hint will be included for the first couple of finds should you need it. Further more my phone number is 0407 532 232 as a last resort. Please let me know how good the coords were in your log.
The final cache lies at the following coordinates.
S37°0W.XYZ'
E147°3E.FGH'
Thanks DJ>