South of Rushworth is Whroo Historic Reserve (pronounced ‘Roo’), an old gold-mining ghost town with relics aplenty: old mine shafts, cyanide vats (used for separating the gold from quartz), puddling machines, and the Balaclava open-cut mine – walk through the tunnel. Whroo visitors centre has a café and a newly produced DVD and history book for sale; see the area as it was and trace the local history. The town once had over 130 buildings, but the ironbarks have reclaimed much of it. There are walking tracks and signed nature trails twisting through the scrub, and the evocative cemetery nearby on Spring Hill. Headstone inscriptions indicate that life was hard for the diggers and their families.