B&W (M) Castlemaine Monument Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia
By Keeper of Time on 20-Aug-10. Waypoint GA2280

Welcome to the 8^th GCA cache by “Keeper of Time”.

Castlemaine Monument

Robert O'Hara Burke was an Irish soldier and police officer, who achieved fame as an Australian explorer. He was the leader of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, which was the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north, finding a route across the continent from the settled areas of Victoria to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition party was well-equipped, but Burke was not experienced in bushcraft and his leadership is often blamed for the failure of the project and deaths of seven people in the party.

He was police superintendent at Castlemaine before his appointment as leader of the Victorian Exploring Expedition in June 1860. He had a distinguished career as a police officer in Victoria and in Ireland, but he seemed to long for a chance to prove himself on a larger stage. This chance was presented when the Royal Society called for applications for the leadership of their new Exploring Expedition.

Burke was a well-known figure in Beechworth and Castlemaine, his two main postings. A curious eccentric, he was well-liked and respected as a police officer, but renowned for his temper, and one does wonder about appointing as the leader of and exploration a man of whom “… it was said … as a good joke but true nevertheless, that when he was returning form Yackandandah to Beechworth he lost his way, although the track was well beaten and frequented, and did not arrive at his destination for many hours after he was due,” or “He could not tell north form south in broad daylight, and the Southern Cross as a guide was a never ending puzzle to him.”

Castlemaine was the first towns to decide to build a monument. Initially they wanted to bury Burke at the Castlemaine cemetery. By May 1862, the citizens of Castlemaine had raised £450 for a memorial from public subscription and donations and on the anniversary of Burke’s death, 1 July 1862, a public holiday was declared. A procession of over 2,000, including John King, John Macadam and Frederick Standish, marched from town to a hill to the east of town where a ceremony was performed and a foundation stone laid by the Sheriff of Castlemaine, Richard Colles. The granite obelisk was completed in July 1863, but not before the workers of Castlemaine and Fryers Creek had threatened to erect a taller monument commemorating Charlie Gray, if Gray's name was not included on the original memorial.

Once at the listed coordinates you will need to answer the following questions.

There are a number of donated stone seats around the monument, how many = A

There is a new part to the monument on the northern corner, it shows a map of Australia and the route that the expedition took, on that route how many places are named = B

The cache is located not far away at S37 04.01A E144 13.B48

The cache is a 1 litre sistema which has been painted black. Please ensure that the cache is well hidden before you leave and I would ask that you help maintain the standard of the cache by placing quality swaps only. As always, be mindful of the local wildlife both good and bad.