Bendigo gold mine tour: Why go underground at Central Deborah?

On a tour of the Central Deborah Gold Mine in Bendigo, tourists learn about Victorian gold mining history. These Bendigo mine tours also reveal the tunnelled underground city beneath Bendigo made by the gold miners.

A small map on the wall at the Central Deborah gold mine illustrates just how much digging has gone on beneath Bendigo. It charts the shaft and tunnel system of the Central Deborah mine, but it also shows thousands more belonging to other mines. There is essentially an underground city beneath Bendigo, and the Bendigo mine tours held at Central Deborah show off just a fraction of it.

Bendigo these days is a relatively large regional city north of Melbourne. Just over 100,000 people live there. But it was once the powerhouse of the Victorian gold rush. Bendigo produced almost as much gold as the rest of the Victorian goldfields put together.

Gold rush in Bendigo, Victoria

Gold-mining wasn’t just a brief boom in Bendigo – it was an industry. Gold was found in the 1850s, and it was only World War II that killed the industry off. The Australian Government ranked industries by how useful they were to the war effort. Gold mining was put in the bottom rung, so miners were sent elsewhere to mine other minerals.

After the war, the reopened Bendigo gold mines were no longer commercially viable. There is still plenty of gold beneath this Victorian city – it’s just that no-one can make enough money extracting it.

Central Deborah gold mine tours in Bendigo

The Deborah Reef was one of the last reefs in Bendigo to be mined, and the Central Deborah gold mine ran from 1939 to 1954. It is now open for tourist visits.

Central Deborah gold mine in Bendigo, Victoria — The Central Deborah gold mine in Bendigo offers underground tours. Photo by David Whitley/ Australia Travel Questions

The Central Deborah mine shaft has been widened considerably to allow for bigger lifts. The originally cages that descended into the earth were a tight squeeze for four men. If the lift broke down, the only way up was via a terrifying vertical ladder. From 411 metres down at the bottom of the mine, that would take an extremely fit miner an hour and a half.

The mine tours focus on the miners rather than the gold. They show off the rock-hewn ‘crib room’, where miners would huddle in to eat their lunch. These days, a significantly bigger function room has been hollowed out nearby to host weddings, work events and birthday parties.

Bendigo gold mine tours: Drilling demonstration

The tour guide also fires up a drill. The noise is deafening, but back in the mining days it was a constant companion. It was heartbreakingly dangerous, too. Glass particles in the quartz rock would end up in the miners’ lungs.

The Mine Experience Tour at Central Deborah Gold Mine costs $32, but you can learn plenty about gold mining history via the surface exhibitions.

Where to stay in Bendigo

The best Bendigo accommodation options are:

For good quality, spacious apartments: Quest Bendigo Central.
For art, liveliness and personality: Mercure Bendigo Schaller.7
For historic charm: Hotel Shamrock.
For central location and (usually) cheap rates: City Centre Motel.

More goldfield cities in Australia

Other former gold mining towns in Australia include Central Tilba in New South Wales – now full of chintzy shops – and Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, Victoria. In Western Australia, gold mining continues in Kalgoorlie where you can visit the Superpit gold mine and learn the heritage at the Museum of the Goldfields. Meanwhile in Walhalla, Victoria, the Walhalla Goldfields Railway runs along a line built to service the gold mines.