BEECHWORTH WALKS - HEAVEN AND HELL

The Starting Point is at the Silver Creek Caravan Park. In the camping area in the clearing nearest Beechworth you will see a small creek. This is Spring Creek. Here you will find two wooden bridges. One crosses Spring Creek and heads up some stairs to the old mine shafts, if you're on this track, turn back, you're going the wrong way. Slightly upstream a smaller foot bridge also crosses Silver Creek. It is this bridge you need to cross.

Follow the trail through the forest and then up some steps into the forest. After walking along the track for some 400 metres you will come across two mine shafts Heaven and Hell. The Upper tunnel was named Heaven and the lower Hell. These tunnels run parellel underground, one on top of the other. In this case Hell is full of water, not fire.

These two tunnels were used in the sluice mining of the other side of this hill. Water from the Silver Creek was pumped through both these tunnels filling up the large storage "bin" made on the other side. This water was fed through smaller sized pipes creating pressure, and then the miners used the "fire hose" to wash the topsoil off the surface of the hills.

Heaven is easily accessible and suitable for most people, but be prepared to get horizontal at the exit as you may need to get down low to pull yourself through. Be sure to bring a good torch for each person as the tunnel is very dark and wear closed shoes. The tunnel is approximately 300 metres long and most of the tunnel is at least 1.8 metres high and upto 1 metre wide. There will often be small insects at the entrance but they disappear inside the cool dark tunnel.The tunnel is also subject to water during the wet months.

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