The Prospector of Granite Creek - ABC Radio interview

ABC High Country: "The Prospector and the Wombat"

Program: ABC Rural Hour Host: Eliza Byrne (EB) Guest: Silas, Prospector from Boomerang

(Sound of gentle stream running, distant kookaburra chuckle)

EB: Welcome back to Rural Hour. For generations, prospectors have searched the goldfields of the Monaro Plains. But our next guest, Silas from the almost-ghost town of Boomerang, recently made a discovery unlike any other—one involving a very stubborn, four-legged rival. Silas, welcome.

Silas: Good day, Eliza.

EB: Silas, you have been panning Granite Creek for decades. Can you describe the moment you realised your bad luck was not due to poor geology, but to a wombat?

Silas: (Chuckles, a dry sound) Well, it started with the missing nuggets. Just tiny ones, you know. You would leave your pan for a minute, and when you came back, all the colour was gone, replaced by little river pebbles. I thought I was losing my mind, or perhaps it was the light. But then, there was Kevin.

EB: The kookaburra. Wally’s aerial nemesis, as we have learned.

Silas: Exactly. Kevin sits in the same old snow gum, and every time I came near a certain burrow entrance, that bird would just laugh—not a happy laugh, mind you, but a mocking, judgmental sound. And the burrow? It was immaculate. No dirt kicked out, no tracks. But after that bird exposed my failure in Boomerang, it clicked: that wombat, Wally, was a master thief and, more importantly, a master digger.

EB: So, you went to the General Store and bought a gold sovereign—a coin Wally had failed to steal the night before—as a kind of ransom?

Silas: (Sighs) A ridiculous notion, isn’t it? But I was desperate. I felt he was holding the key to the creek. I held that coin out, right in front of his door, and I said, "You've been panning my claims and you're better at it. You want this? Give me a tip."

EB: And he responded?

Silas: He did. Slowly, he pushed out the dirt plug. He looked at me, looked at the coin, and then, while Kevin was watching like a beak-driven accountant, he shuffled forward, took the sovereign, and tucked it into his cheek—just like a little money bag! Then, he used his nose to nudge a tiny seam of milky quartz running towards a bend I’d always ignored.

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EB: And did you find gold there?

Silas: Enough. Not the monster nugget Wally’s sitting on, mind you, but enough to make the effort worthwhile. Enough to keep the heart in Boomerang for another year.

EB: So now you have a symbiotic relationship: The prospector and the wombat.

Silas: We have a truce. He has his perfect coin, I have a decent claim, and Kevin has a fascinating, lifelong secret to keep. We don’t chat much, but every now and then, I leave a particularly good pumpkin near the entrance. It's a professional courtesy, you might say.

EB: That truly is remarkable, Silas. Now, before we let you go, you mentioned Boomerang. For our listeners who might not be familiar with that part of the Monaro, can you tell us a bit about the town's past? It sounds like it’s certainly seen better days.

Silas: It has. Boomerang—well, she's an old girl. The name comes from how the gold was: fickle. Men would leave, convinced the lode was over the next ridge, but they’d always loop back. Our prime was between 1860 and 1890, when it was absolute chaos. Fifteen hotels, two banks! Now, it's quiet, but the bones are still there. The granite and the iron just won't let it fade completely.

EB: And speaking of the bones of the town, what about the General Store? That must be a relic in itself if it still has the display case with the sovereign. How long has that store been operating?

Silas: The store is a survivor, that’s for sure. It’s been standing since the mid-1870s, I reckon. It’s changed hands so many times, but it’s always been the heart of the place. It used to sell shovels and dynamite; now it sells milk and postage stamps. It even doubles as our library now. It’s one of the few things, aside from the Granite Creek Hotel, that has always kept the door open. You could say the store is just as stubborn as Wally, really.

EB: A town held together by stubbornness and a shared secret about a gold-hoarding wombat. What a picture. Silas, thank you for sharing this remarkable story from the High Country.

(Sound of gentle stream running fades)