Participants were afforded a sleep in this morning with breakfast served at the more sensible 8am. The agenda today would see competitors and officials enjoying a Steam Train ride from Maldon to Castlemaine, followed by an underground tour at the Central Deborah Gold Mine. Lunch was a BBQ complete with Aussie favorites Kangaroo steaks, Lamingtons and Anzac Biscuits.
A walk to the train station got the day started where some of the competitors were treated to the opportunity to push the loco around on the turntable. After some shuffling of locos and carriages, we were soon on our way.
The trip was quite relaxing with a team even enjoying a animated game of poker (Chinese style). Every imaginable camera was working overtime as the train rattled down the tracks towards Castlemaine.
The trip to Bendigo was made on 2 buses and we were soon arriving at the Central Deborah Gold Mine for our BBQ lunch and underground mine tour. This Mine was origionaly dug to a depth of more than 400m, however today we were only taken to a depth of 65m. The tour lasted 45minutes and our great host Laurie kept us entertained with rock drilling, fools gold, real gold, pretend blasting and drop bears.
Lunch was served by about 8 orienteering volunteers who had cooked up a feast. Six or so salads, cold drinks and deserts were also well received. An impromptu lesson was given “Having a BBQ Aussie style” Class 1 was how to eat a sausage in bread, this was mostly due to us running out of plates. The Kangaroo sample steaks went down a treat and proved very popular. After lunch we enjoyed activities such as quoits, horse shoe tossing, gold panning, and various machinery and static displays. At departure time we discovered that that we had lost 2 Chinese team members. A quick run around the small area revealed that they had disappeared to the local bank (5 blocks away) to exchange currency. We were soon all back on the bus returning to the camp.