For those that don't know it:
Taken from
http://strlhistorymatters.blogspot.com/2010/01/legend-of-billy-blue.html
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
The Legend of Billy Blue
There are today perhaps very few who will recall the legend of Billy Blue. Billy Blue was a part aboriginal who with his gin lived somewhere in the Shoalhaven Gorges. Others persist he lived in a particular cave which for at least two generations has never been found and with increasing years its location is becoming even more remote.
Come what may, there is ample evidence that Billy Blue knew where there was a substantial amount of gold to be found. Billy was a quiet sort of chap who kept very much to himself. Periodically he would come into Marulan with small quantities of gold which he would exchange for such commodities as he required and silently and almost invisibly return to his hideout. Experts of the day were satisfied that it was not alluvial wash golf but had been hacked out of a reef.
Bill was a constant visitor to Marulan for a number of years and never seemed to be at a loss for the precious metal. Many indeed, we are told, who tried to track Billy to its source but without success. So expert was Billys bushcraft he was soon lost to any followers. Seeing he was so well watched he conceived a round about course arriving in Marulan by one route and returning by another. The old hands used to speak of two well known tracks known as McCallums and Bradleys Tracks. It is quite apparent Billy had quite a number of routes through the scrub known only to himself.
His gin would wait for his return and should she espie any intruders she would signal him and Billy would take the que and quickly take another trail through the bush.
As age progressed Billy got very sick and he had to be given medical aid. He was hospitalised and gradually sank lower and lower. As he was about to die the story goes, he was asked to reveal the location of his gold. He firmly refused but said if they got his brother he would tell him. At this period there was a considerable aboriginal camp reserve near Yass Town known as Hollywood. By the time they were able to get his brother to his bedside Billy had passed on. It is more than possible Billys widow never knew its exact location for his death brought an end to any more gold. So the secret of Billy Blues gold passed to his grave with him.
Prospectors and geologists have repeatedly tried to find its source without success. However gold there was and the older prospectors and locals still aver the gold is still there somewhere down in the Shoalhaven gorges.
Source: The Legend of Billy Blue by SJ Tazewell (1981), in Goulburn & District Historical Society Bulletin No.157.
There was also a book that was available online at
http://www.ozhistorymine.com/html/
Also from 'Jim Sturgiss's classic The Man from Misty Mountain. It details a story that was past down by the locals living in Southern NSW around Nowra and Nerriga sometime in the late 1800's. It involves Billy Bulloo's alleged lost Gold Reef somewhere on the Shoalhaven River.
Billy was a regular visitor to Bungonia, Marulan, Nerriga and Nowra where he often appeared in wet clothing before selling his tomahawk marked chunks of gold to the local storekeepers. The locals grew rather envious of Billy's skill at mining and so plied him with grog to make him drink in the hope that it would loosen his tongue. Unfortunately when Billy became intoxicated it would only make him silent and sleep. After Billy had spent his money and given some to his friends, Billy would leave those towns and return to the bush evading the many people that tried to follow.
Some locals soon had a theory worked out. Billy had found a gold reef under the waters of the Shoalhaven River and would dive underwater, hack off a chunk of gold with his tomahawk before arriving in one of the towns he frequented still wet... with his gold. However not everyone was optimistic with this theory. Jim Barron a long time gold miner at Grassy Gully believed the gold was Araluen Gold and quite different in shape to the gold found around Nowra-Marulan-Nerriga areas of the Shoalhaven River. The locals however remained loyal to their theory of a submerged reef. Others believed that the gold was hacked off from pieces of gold that had been hidden after being stolen by the Clarke Brothers, bushrangers who were very active in the south coast some time earlier.
It was known that Billy would travel upstream from Burrier on the Shoalhaven River to a point where he would climb up a slender log which stood against a small but otherwise impassible cliff on the bank of the river. He would then pull up the sapling behind him and vanish, only to return a short time later. Billy would tell people that his mine was only a days ride from Nowra. In later years Billy had an Aboriginal youth with him who would accompany him to the area... in his later years he identified that area to Mr Sturgiss as Tolwong. The youth was left to guard while Billy would disappear into the bush before returning a short time later with the gold.. wet.. wrapped in a wet blanket.
Anyone who knows this area would know that it now stands in the Morton National Park, an area that saw alot of gold mining in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
