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Great Western Plains Creek Dig

We went away for a week in February 2004. I had researched a few of the old Homesteads in an area close to where I grew up, one of them was a double story bluestone mansion which lay right on the banks of a large creek. The property was selected in 1839 and the original homestead was built around that time which was a fairly modest timber home, later after successful farming of sheep the 'Big House' was built around 1860, this house is pictured above.

We went out and visited the homestead to seek permission to access the creek, which is crown land, and were meet with great resistance, the chap we spoke to sited everything from public liability to high fire danger as reasons not to let us cross his land, and when I pushed a little harder he then said "well it is my fathers property you will have to ask him and he won't be back for a week". We gave up.
We then headed to the property which was on the other side of the creek, we spoke to a very friendly fellow by the name of Norm, I asked if he would give us permission to walk down a fence line to gain access to the creek, he said "I can do better than that, if you follow that track there you can drive to the creek", so we had permission to go over Norms land. We were searching for an old bridge and using a picture I have of the house in 1890 we drove along the fence line until we found the remains of the bridge and we parked in full view just on the other side of the creek from the 'Big House'.







We changed into our wetsuits and jumped in about 300 meters upstream from the bridge, I was expecting the creek to be loaded with bottles because I knew no one had been there before. Well we did not find much, after around 15 minutes Toby had the first find a Sealed St Julien Medoc bottle, I was struggling to find even any broken glass, I then found a broken Case Gin, we did not find much at all in the creek along the front of the house, later about 600 meters down stream at what was the old pumping station I found a Heildon Spa blob top corker and soon after a Geo Durham Codd bottle from Nhill, Toby found an 1850's Para Port or Benedictine bottle there as well.


   

We went back over most of the creek but did not find anything else worth mentioning. Earlier in the week we gained permission to access a creek running through another early homestead, this one had a bluestone homestead, school and many other buildings dating back to 1854, we found a few black bottles and I found a nice Stone Master Ink but again we did not find a lot of old bottles, there was a ford in the river and we found loads of 1940's beer which showed us that the area had not been dug, just not much old stuff.
   





Later in the week we went to another river we thought might have some bottles, we walked around 6 km upstream and jumped in, we did not find much at all, about 3 km down stream we found a large area of tip behind a fairly new house (1940's) however there must have been an older home there as we found lots of bottles and general house tip. I found a Fletcher's Crossed Flag torpedo and a Fletchers Codd, along with some poison bottles and a few other things, a bit further down Toby found two Fletchers Crown TM Codds and a J S Rowley Codd, I also found around 20 codds with there tops off, we spent most of the day here and recovered a lot of bottles.

We spent time in a few other places and found a few good bottles, see below, all in all a good trip away.

What was dug:

1: 13 oz John Fletcher , Warrnambool Codds with just writing. 2: 7oz John Fletcher , Warrnambool Codds with Crown Trade Mark. 1: 7oz J.S. Rowley Codds Just writing. 1: John Fletcher Torpedo Crossed Flags Trade Mark. 1 Very early traders Whiskey ½ size bottle. 2: Warrnambool Cordials Machine Top Internal Threads Circle Trade Mark. 2: Warrnambool Cordials Machine Top Internal Threads straight writing. 1: St Julien Madoc Sealed Cognac. 1: Geo Durham Nhill Codd. 3: 13 oz John Fletcher , Ginger Ale, Warrnambool Codds. 1: Atlantic Union Motor Oil enamel sign. 2: MBCV Country big spade ring seal beers in different colours. 5: Arctic Ice, Warrnambool Pint Milk. 1: Cunlif & Paterson Sauce Bottle Melbourne.

2: Arctic Ice, Warrnambool ½ Pint Milk. 10: R.V. Reeves, Warrnambool Crown Seals. 1: Heildon Spa Brisbane Blob Top Corker. 1: R.V. Reeves, Warrnambool, Machine Top Riley. 3: R.V. Reeves, Warrnambool 7 oz Crown Seal. 1: 3 peice mould Para Port. 2: Warrnambool Cordials 10 oz Crown Seals. 4: Warrnambool Cordials & Flett's 7 oz Crown Seals. 5: Flett's Warrnambool Crown Seals. 1: Stoneware ink. 1: Stoneware master ink. 50+: Goldfield Blacks. 1: Kitchens Large Size Phenyle. 2: A.J.C 10 oz Sauce Bottles. 1: Case Gin bottle.

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