Inside Melbourne’s old treasury building was a museum situated within the last free tram stop along Collins Street. For those interested in early European settlement and the gold rush era, there was room after room dedicated to this section of Victoria’s past.

I zigzagged through these sections at top speed more interested in the internal architecture of this massive 19thcentury building. I also wanted to avoid rooms filled with students bombarded with historical information.

The most interesting section was the basement. The building was originally constructed to store the gold pouring into Melbourne from the gold fields. The size and number of vaults was testimony to the tonnes of gold extracted from Ballarat and Bendigo.