The Story of Harry ROMEY

The Story of Harry.

I was told by an “Old Timer” in the Pub at St Arnaud one day about a large tin full of gold nuggets in the area. The story goes something like this. Harry told his best mate while he was dying in hospital of a hidden drum of Gold he had buried in the forest. It was a square 4-gallon Kerosene tin full of Gold nuggets. He had found the nuggets while fossicking in the local forest. He told his friend that he had buried the drum so many feet from a land mark just inside the forest boundary.

He did state what the land mark was, but what Harry had forgotten to tell his friend, was which one. You see there are many large old dead trees just inside the forest. What Harry had also forgotten to tell his friend was which part of the forest the drum was buried. This story was told in 1967 just before he died.

As far as I know the Gold has still not been found. Yes, I did go looking for the Gold and I did actually find Harry’s old camp. It was full of old bottles, dry sieve plates and an old stone fireplace he had made. If you look carefully in the photograph you can see the fireplace behind the structure. I even found his old hat that I wedged in a “V” in one of his cross spars. It is held there in part by the T bar of an old A frame hut he obviously had built. I located numerous old gold diggings, which included a puddling hole. I did find an old rusty 4-gallon Kerosene tin but it was empty. (Unfortunately) It was also on top of the ground. At least I could tell what type of drums Harry used.

I conducted some further research on this subject with some local farmers and found that Harry was a good family man and that he had 5 children. I was told that when Harry retired he dedicated himself to finding COLAHAN’s lost reef, which had been reported in the area. I could talk about that lost reef, but that’s another story. It is not known if Harry had indeed found the lost reef, but from his diggings he certainly must have found something, as the diggings were quite extensive. I was told that Harry had died of a stroke. I was also told that Harry’s friend tried to find the Gold using a Crow Bar as a stake, but found nothing. Oh yes, by the way the forest is in Victoria and it is the Kara Kara State forest. Good Luck.

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