A Pile of Rocks and a Hole in the Ground: Heritage Tourism and Interpretation of the Gold Rushes at the Mount Alexander Diggings

The Mount Alexander Diggings is a series of 33 linked Gold Rush sites at Castlemaine and Maldon in the state of Victoria, Australia. The sites are not reconstructions, a small number have been restored, but the majority are ruins - piles of rocks and holes in the ground. Interpretation is provided through either a guidebook, guided tours or (in a small number of cases) on site signage. The sites are nearly all on public land. In 2002 many of the sites were given National Parks status in the newly established Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park. The Victorian Government is currently engaged in developing a World Heritage Listing application for the area. Historic tourism focussing on the Gold Rushes in Australia is dominated by one large-scale tourist attraction. This is the Sovereign Hill Outdoor Museum at Ballarat, 90 kilometres south. This highly successful reconstruction of the Gold Rushes has the highest level of visitation of any tourist attraction in regional Victoria and of any historic attraction in Australia. Developments such as the Mount Alexander Diggings are strongly influenced by the style of Sovereign Hill (including its interpretation) and by its success as an attraction and as a focus of regional tourism for Ballarat. This study considers three main issues arising from the development of the Mount Alexander Diggings and its positioning in relation to Sovereign Hill. The first is the difficulty of providing meaningful interpretation for visitors to historic mining landscapes. The success of Sovereign Hill at Ballarat and of a number of historic gold towns throughout Australia has preconditioned tourists to associate the Gold Rushes with townscapes and buildings. However, in the case of the Mount Alexander Diggings few of its sites are standing buildings and many are in isolated bush areas. This study highlights how this contrast may be turned into an asset rather than a liability through appropriate interpretation. The second issue concerns the role of interpretation in adding depth to the experience of visiting historic sites of extreme environmental degradation. For the Mount Alexander Diggings this includes attempts to interpret what the landscape was like before 1851 and how the various features of the Gold Rushes changed it. The third issue relates to the characteristics, activities and expectations of those who visit such historic sites. Unfortunately in Australia there has been very little published research into the types of tourists who are attracted to historic areas. Here the study draws on preliminary results from the Mount Alexander Tourist Survey which commenced in 2001.