Melville Caves lie atop a spectacular rocky mountain within the Kooyoora State Park in Brenanah, Victoria. Featuring a scenic lookout, walking tracks and caves.There's a great picnic area at the foot of the mountain, along with a well-equipped free campground on the way up to the top where we settled in for the night.
We went for a walk to the caves and takes roughly 20 minutes. The track takes you alongside gorgeous, gigantic rock formations and a well structured lookout, which offers incredible views and a monument showing the names/directions of many visible landmarks.
The caves are formed beneath huge boulders which are staggered across the mountainside. There are multiple caverns and pathways beneath/through the giant rocks. The main cave has two levels and a small staircase which helps you get through safely.
They are named after notorious bushranger Captain Melville who supposedly used the caves as a hiding place and lookout in the mid 19th century.
Francis Melville (1822-1857), bushranger, was born probably Francis McNeiss McNiel McCallum in Inverness, Scotland. He had some schooling but about 12 became a thief. When at 15 he was sentenced to seven years' transportation for housebreaking. As Edward Melville (Mulvell) he served for twenty months in English gaols and was then sent to Hobart Town in the Minerva. He arrived in1838 and was placed at Port Arthur. In 1839-48 he came before the police magistrate twenty-five times. Recommended in 1846 for a year's probation, he absconded and lived with the Aboriginals for a year. After recapture he was given nine months' hard labour in chains, an experience repeated in January and August 1850. Calling himself Captain Francis Melville and posing as a gentleman, he reached Victoria about October 1851 and by December had turned bushranger. He claimed leadership of the Mount Macedon gang that waylaid travellers in the Black Forest. In 1852 he held up Alfred Joyce at Norwood station and watched for travellers along the western track from the central goldfields across the Wimmera.
The next day we enjoyed the walks from camp to the Southern and McLeod Lookouts.
We also explored the Crystal Mine area.
The next day we went for a drive to Moliagul Lookout.
We also went to the historical gold fields where the worlds largest nugget "Welcome Stranger" was found only 3 cm below the surface, near the base of a tree on a slope leading to what was then known as Bulldog Gully, the nugget had a gross weight of 109.59 kilograms. At the time of the discovery, there were no scales capable of weighing a nugget this large, so it was broken into three pieces on an anvil. Deason, Oates, and a few friends took the nugget to the London Chartered Bank of Australia, in Dunolly, which advanced them £9,000.The nugget was soon melted down and the gold was sent as ingots to Melbourne for forwarding to the Bank of England.
The buildings in Dunolly reflect its rich gold history.
We enjoyed a delicious pie from the bakery (one of the best we have ever tasted).
The following day we stopped at St. Arnaud Lookout. We then decided to stay the night at Teddington Resevoir. We walked around the dam and up to the the hut.
We had a lovely walk and saw the effects of the bushfires.
