Women in the Goldfields
Never one to let her gender get in the way of adventure Ellen’s life in Australia was far from dreary and she writes numerous accounts of her adventures. One night the digging party became lost in the pitch black of night after walking some distance from their camp. Luckily they eventually spotted a light, and walked towards it. “Luckily my brother had managed to get hold of a long stick, with which he cleared the way of either large stones or water-holes.
“We heard voices ahead so we continued but the voices were actually telling me to stop! It was too late. My feet slipped – a sharp pain succeeded by a sudden chill – a feeling of suffocation – of my head being ready to burst – and I remembered no more." Ellen had fallen into one of the many holes that littered the gold fields, which, due to heavy rain, had filled with mud. As she was short, she was totally immersed in mud and suffered a sprained and cut ankle.
By Hannah Thompson