In the 1850s, the gullies around Echunga swarmed with diggers chasing South Australia's first gold. The fever passed, but its mark remains.
For a few feverish years in the 1850s, the quiet gullies of the southern Adelaide Hills were anything but quiet.
When gold was found near Echunga, it set off South Australia's first significant rush. Diggers poured into the area, tents sprang up along the creeks, and for a time the little settlement was at the centre of the young colony's hopes — a chance to keep its restless miners from decamping to the richer fields of Victoria.
A modest fortune
The South Australian fields never rivalled the great Victorian strikes. The gold was real but limited, and within a few years most of the diggers had drifted away. Yet for a colony anxious about its future, even a modest rush mattered, and Echunga's name was made.
Reading the past
Today the fever is long gone, but its traces linger. Echunga has settled into life as a handsome stone village, and the surrounding diggings and reservoir country make for quiet, history-rich exploring. It's a reminder that the Adelaide Hills' story runs far deeper than the cellar doors — and that beneath the orchards and vineyards lies a more restless past.
