Bendigo Creek is a seasonal stream, or creek, in North Central Victoria, Australia. The city of Bendigo is named for the creek and valley in which it was founded in 1851. Gold was officially discovered on Bendigo Creek in late October 1851, transforming the area in less than a year from a secluded bushland to a scene which "beggared description" [1] as tens of thousands of men, women and children came to the area during the gold rush at Bendigo Creek in 1852. [2]
The creek rises in the Big Hill range south-west of the city of Bendigo near the Crusoe Reservoir. Starting at an elevation of 287 metres, the creek almost immediately flows through the Crusoe Reservoir at 286 metres and then forms a geographic spine through Bendigo's CBD either past or under many of the city's landmarks including the Alexandra Fountain at Charing Cross, Rosalind Park, Lake Weeroona and the Bendigo Botanic Gardens. The Bendigo Creek Trail, for walkers and cyclists, follows the creek's course north-east from the Crusoe Reservoir past natural bush and historic landmarks to the Bendigo Pottery in Epsom. [3]
The creek descends nearly 200 metres over its 153-kilometre course before joining Mount Hope Creek, northeast of Mitiamo, at an elevation of 87.3 metres. Myers Creek, Reedy Creek and Piccaninny Creek flow into Bendigo Creek. [4]
Over many millennia, the flow of the Bendigo Creek formed the Bendigo Valley, the site of the present city of Bendigo.
The first European settlers, who arrived in 1837 after the survey of the area in 1836 by Major Sir Thomas Mitchell, used the Bendigo Valley for their working bullocks as the valley was "wide, gentle, well-grassed and secluded". [5] Later the settlers brought sheep to the creek valley, making it an outstation of the Mount Alexander North pastoral run and building a hut on the creek in the valley. The creek was just within the north-eastern boundary of the Mount Alexander North pastoral run. [6] [7] The location on Bendigo Creek where gold was alleged to have been first discovered in October 1851 was a short distance from that shepherd's hut. [8]
The occupants of the Mount Alexander North run, later called the Ravenswood run, [9] named the creek "Bendigo' Creek", originally spelled "Bednego Creek" after a local bullock driver and employee of the Mount Alexander North run. Although the bullock driver's actual name remains unknown, he "was handy with his fists" [10] and was consequently nicknamed for the English bare-knuckle prizefighter William Abednego "Bendigo" Thompson (1811-1880) who was then at the height of his fame. The word "Bendigo" is a corruption of the name "Abednego" in its shortened form, "Bednego". [11] Bendigo Thompson was a famously agile boxer who initially earned the nickname "Bendy" because of his constant bobbing and weaving around the ring. His nickname evolved: "Bendy" in combination with his middle name, Abednego, became "Bendigo". [12]
Bendigo is a city in Victoria, Australia, located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately 150 kilometres (93 mi) north-west of Melbourne, the state capital.
Castlemaine is a town in west central Victoria, Australia, in the Goldfields region about 120 kilometres northwest by road from Melbourne and about 40 kilometres from the major provincial centre of Bendigo. It is the administrative and economic centre of the Shire of Mount Alexander. The population at the 2021 Census was 7,506. Castlemaine was named by the chief goldfield commissioner, Captain W. Wright, in honour of his Irish uncle, Viscount Castlemaine.
The Clark Fork, or the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, is a river in the U.S. states of Montana and Idaho, approximately 310 miles (500 km) long. The largest river by volume in Montana, it drains an extensive region of the Rocky Mountains in western Montana and northern Idaho in the watershed of the Columbia River. The river flows northwest through a long valley at the base of the Cabinet Mountains and empties into Lake Pend Oreille in the Idaho Panhandle. The Pend Oreille River in Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia, Canada which drains the lake to the Columbia in Washington, is sometimes included as part of the Clark Fork, giving it a total length of 479 miles (771 km), with a drainage area of 25,820 square miles (66,900 km2). In its upper 20 miles (32 km) in Montana near Butte, it is known as Silver Bow Creek. Interstate 90 follows much of the upper course of the river from Butte to Saint Regis. The highest point within the river's watershed is Mount Evans at 10,641 feet (3,243 m) in Deer Lodge County, Montana along the Continental Divide.
The River Torrens is the most significant river of the Adelaide Plains. It was one of the main reasons for the siting of the city of Adelaide, capital of South Australia. It flows 85 kilometres (53 mi) from its source in the Adelaide Hills near Mount Pleasant, across the Adelaide Plains, past the city centre and empties into Gulf St Vincent between Henley Beach South and West Beach. The upper stretches of the river and the reservoirs in its watershed supply a significant part of the city's water supply.
The Merri Creek is a waterway in southern parts of Victoria, Australia which flows through the northern suburbs of Melbourne. It begins near Wallan and flows south for 70 km until joining the Yarra River at Dights Falls. The area where the creek meets the river was traditionally the location for large gatherings of the Wurundjeri people and is suspected to have been the location for one of the earliest land treaties in Australia between Indigenous Australians and European settlers.
The Burnett River is a river in the Wide Bay–Burnett and Central Queensland regions of Queensland, Australia.
The Loddon River, an inland river of the north–central catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the lower Riverina bioregion and Central Highlands and Loddon Mallee regions of the Australian state of Victoria. The headwaters of the Loddon River rise on the northern slopes of the Great Dividing Range east of Daylesford and descend to flow north into the Little Murray River, near Swan Hill. The river is impounded by the Cairn Curran and Laanecoorie reservoirs.
William Abednego Thompson, also known Bendigo Thompson, was an English bare-knuckle boxer who won the heavyweight championship of England from James Burke on 12 February 1839. He was inducted into The Ring magazine Hall of Fame in 1955, the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991, and the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011. His nickname of "Bendigo" lives on in the name of a city and creek in Australia.
Bendigo Senior Secondary College (BSSC) is an Australian government-funded co-educational secondary school for Year 11 and Year 12 students located in the centre of Bendigo, Victoria. It is the largest provider of VCE, VET and VCAL in the state of Victoria.
The Bendigo School of Mines was established in Bendigo, Australia in 1873 to provide technical education, predominantly for the mining industry.
The Shire of Metcalfe was a local government area about 105 kilometres (65 mi) north-northwest of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia, and 45 kilometres (28 mi) south of the regional city of Bendigo. The shire covered an area of 590.52 square kilometres (228.0 sq mi), and existed from 1860 until 1995.
During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of New South Wales had suppressed the news out of the fear that it would reduce the workforce and destabilise the economy.
The Yarrowee River is a perennial river of the Corangamite catchment, located in the Central Highlands region of the Australian state of Victoria.
The Jim Crow goldfield was part of the Goldfields region of Victoria, Australia, where gold was mined from the mid- to the late-nineteenth century.
Deep Creek Dam is a major ungated concrete gravity dam across the Deep Creek in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. The dam's main purpose is for the diversion of water for generation of hydro-power and is the smallest of the sixteen major dams that comprise the Snowy Mountains Scheme, a vast hydroelectricity and irrigation complex constructed in south-east Australia between 1949 and 1974 and now run by Snowy Hydro.
Charing Cross is a major junction centrally located in the city of Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. It is the intersection, or crossing point, of four of Bendigo's main streets: High Street, View Street, Pall Mall and Mitchell Street. As the Midland Highway, one of Bendigo's main thoroughfares, passes through Charing Cross, the highway is named High Street to the south-west and Pall Mall to the north-east of Charing Cross.
Pall Mall is a major thoroughfare in the centre of Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. It is one of the main streets of the Bendigo central business district and connects the Charing Cross intersection to the south-west with McCrae Street to the north-east at Howard Place, opposite Mundy Street. Pall Mall also forms a 500-metre section of the Midland Highway, one of Bendigo's main thoroughfares.
The Bendigo Valley is the region surrounding the city of Bendigo, Victoria, Australia located in North Central Victoria near the geographical centre of the state. The valley is approximately 150 kilometres (93 mi) north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. The city of Bendigo is located on the floor of, and is enclosed by, the Bendigo Valley which was formed over many millennia by the Bendigo Creek after which the valley is named. The Bendigo Creek forms a geographic spine through the city and suburbs of Bendigo. The valley is notable as a major tourist destination and is the location of one of the world's largest and longest-lived gold production areas.
Big Hill is a suburb in the City of Greater Bendigo. It forms part of the Big Hill range to the immediate south of the city of Bendigo. It is the southern part of the rim of forested hills surrounding the Bendigo Valley in which the city of Bendigo is located. The Calder Highway and the Midland Highway, which join to form the main route into Bendigo from Melbourne, pass through a prominent cutting in Big Hill as the southern gateway to Bendigo. The route over Big Hill has marked the main southern entrance to the Bendigo Valley since 1851.
36°29′13″S144°29′23″E / 36.486944°S 144.489722°E
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