Araluen
Arealuen is one of the most famous goldmining boom towns in NSW. Today it is little more than a few buildings in a beautiful valley noted for its orchards (especially peaches) and picturesque valley location.
Where is it?: 318 km from Sydney via Goulburn or 364 km via the Princes Highway
Though Araluen today is little more than a few buildings, it is well worth the drive, if only in a beautiful valley noted for its orchards (especially peaches) andto enjoy the mountain drive and the peaceful, picturesque valley which encircles this out-of-the-way village.
The easiest access is the 25 km route from Braidwood which is sealed and uncomplicated. The prettiest, and also most precipitous, is the 12 km track (to call it a road is to overstate its importance) from Majors Creek which drops spectacularly into the valley and offers the best entry through rich orchards and past both the cemeteries before joining the Braidwood road. The road through to Moruya is mostly a dirt road which is quite accessible although it is probably quicker to return to Braidwood and drive to the coast via the Kings Highway to Batemans Bay.
Once you have arrived there isn't a great deal to see and do, but that is not the point of the exercise. There are strange mounds, now green and grassy, that were once the mullock heaps left by the dredging of the valley. The historic Anglican and Roman Catholic cemeteries are both worth visiting. It is hard to imagine, given the small population now living in the valley, that so many people could have once lived (and died) here.
There is a pleasant picnic location beside the Araluen River which allows fossickers the opportunity to try their luck in this famous alluvial gold river. Unfortunately the area was dredged for many years so your chances of finding anything are remote, but it makes for a great picnic spot.
Origin of name: it is believed that 'Araluen', probably translated from the Aboriginal words 'Arr-a l-yin', might mean 'place of the water lilies'. The seeds of the water lilly 'Nymphaea alba' were a favourite food of the Aborigines.
The first Europeans into the area arrived in 1822 and by the end of the decade the area had been accurately mapped. Two Moruya men, Alexander Waddell and Harry 'The Blacksmith' Hicken, had rushed to the Ophir goldfields in the 1850s.
It was there that they realised the terrain was remarkably similar to the area behind Moruya. They returned home and by 1851, having moved further and further up the Araluen valley, they had discovered gold. This led to a rush: within months there were 15,000 men in the Araluen Valley.
During its life some $11 million worth of gold was taken from the field. In 1860, with many of the valleys stripped by overzealous goldminers, the area was hit by a devastating flood and much of the town was washed away. Gold continued to be mined until the end of the century when most people left, leaving Araluen pretty much as we see it today.
