E20 - Off to the Rush - An Initial Challenge
From Australian Stories from our Past by Greg and Peter
February 13, 2026 · 34 min · Episode 20
About this episode
The episode explores a family's challenging journey from Kooramoora to the Bendigo goldfields in 1852, highlighting geographical and agricultural obstacles.
Send us Fan Mail A desert boundary, a flooded creek, and forty bullocks that won’t stop heading home—this is the uneasy start of a family’s 1852 push from Kooramoora to the Bendigo goldfields. We open with the puzzle of Goyder’s Line, the fenceless border where rainfall drops, Mallee yields to saltbush, and the dream of cropping often turns to stone ruins. Then we set our wheels on the Upper Murray track, chosen to dodge rutted southern routes and the bottleneck at the Wellington ferry,...
Topics covered
- goldfields
- family history
- migration
- agriculture
- landscapes
Keywords
- Goyder’s Line
- Upper Murray track
- Bendigo
- 1852
- Mallee
Mentioned in this episode
Products: Mallee
Places: Kooramoora, Bendigo, Upper Murray, Wellington
More episodes of Australian Stories from our Past
- The Long Road To Bendigo (Episode 25) · March 20, 2026 · 29 min
- E24 - Off to the Rush - Crossing the Murray · March 13, 2026 · 32 min
- E23 - Off to the Rush - Crossing the Darling - Twice · March 6, 2026 · 31 min
- E22 - Off to the Rush - Life and Death along the Track · February 27, 2026 · 31 min
- E21 - Off to the Rush - North West Corner to Lake Bonney · February 20, 2026 · 35 min
- E19 - Off to the Rush - Gold Fever Strikes · February 6, 2026 · 42 min
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