Red Robin Mine Huts
Photo courtesy of Gary Duncan © 1993.
Known as Red Robin Huts or Red Robin Mine.
Located at Machinery Spur below Mount Loch.
From Mount Hotham village drive about 1 km west along the sealed Great Alpine Road to Alpine Gateway/Mount Loch car park. Walk north along Machinery Spur Track past the Mount Loch locality towards Red Robin Mine.
Allow roughly 5–6 km each way to the upper mine area, depending on the structure visited. Confirm the route on the current resort/park map. The battery down in the West Kiewa Valley is a separate site, and its map pin does not identify these upper huts.
Respect gates and any mining tenure; do not enter adits, shafts or unstable buildings.
History
There are several huts here, commencing with that built by Bill Spargo in 1941. Other huts were built at differing adit levels.
The battery itself, was erected here in 1949 and operated until 1964 as a Gold Mine, with Bill and his wife Evelyn Piper. She lived here for some time until she became sick of it and divorced him. After 1964, the Livingstone brothers took parts of the machinery to the Kiewa River site.
Construction
Generally corrugated iron over poles. One hut was an A frame at a lower adit level. The others had iron gabled roofs, one similar to Bill Spargos other hut at Golden Point.
Caretakers - Ken Harris.
References
Hueneke Pp 242
Magnussen Pp63 - 64
Butler Pp269 -271.
Mapping Guidance;
Approximate upper-mine locality GPS: 36.94079°S, 147.15624°E.
UTM Zone 55H: 513912 m E, 5911684 m N (WGS84). Calculated from the former Feathertop map grid GR138115 assuming AMG/AGD66 Zone 55.
Exact individual hut positions and datum need confirmation; this is not the lower Red Robin Battery waypoint.