Hi All Joyces Creek is near Newstead and Alma is the other side of Maryborough Elaine

Gals ( this is an alternative postivie discrimination generic to "guys" and more accurate for the majority of list members I'd say). Re. Joyces'/Joyce's Creek Diggings. if you can get hold of A Homestead History, Reminiscences and Letters of Alfred Joyce of Plaistow and Norwood, Port Phillip, 1843-1864 ed. G.J. James, 3rd edition, 1969, O.U.P, 206 pages, indexes, photos, the confusion will unconfuse! From memory, two Joyce brothers George and Alfred, came first to Plaistow run (on the edge of what is now Cairn Curran at what is still called locally "Joyce's Creek). Alfred then moved further "inland" to between what is now Alma and Wareek and took up Norwood run on what is now called the Bet Bet Creek. The Alma diggings were on a tributary of the Bet Bet, now called the Timor (pron Tie-mor, not Tee-mor) Creek. it was quite logical for goldfields locals of the Maryborough area to call Timor Creek "Joyce's Creek" because it was (just) on the Norwood run. Water was in much shorter supply (still is) on the Norwood side of Maryborough than on the Plaistow side - Alfred regretted moving there, and eventually went broke ( for many reasons if you read the book) So, it's quite likely that he was VERY interested in what was happening to a Creek (Timor) on his run. In modern times, since the opening of the Melbourne-Castlemaine- Maryborough railway in 1874, there was no local confusion, because Joyce's Creek was a railway station and a village (site mostly destroyed by the building of the Cairn Curran Reservoir in the 1950's) on that railway, and given that most passenger trains (to 1948) were mixed goods, travellers had plenty of time to contemplate the delights of Joyce's Creek while the train shunted the goods wagons. If you want more info on either Joyce's Creek or Alma or Cairn Curran go to the list archives. Back in the days when I had lots of time ( 2003?) to post to the list, several of us posted lots of messages in relation to those places. Enjoy, all youse gals! ( Youse being the plural of "you" in lots of modern goldfields places. There's a certain logic for those who don't know the "thou" history.) Back to burning the tree branches wot the drought has killed. Tom >From: "Elaine Murphy" <emurphy@netconnect.com.au> >To: AUS-VIC-GOLDFIELDS-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: Alma / Joyces Creek >Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 16:06:47 +1000 > >Hi All >Joyces Creek is near Newstead and Alma is the other side of Maryborough >Elaine > > >==== AUS-VIC-GOLDFIELDS Mailing List ==== >Searchable archives at >http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/?list=AUS-VIC-GOLDFIELDS-L >

Thanks Tom, appreciate all the information, will now go and dabble in the Archives. Cheers Joan