This crazy ride went on for twenty minutes or more before the motion of the ship settled as she pushed into a moderate sea.

‘I think we are through,’ Annie said to no one in particular, and beside her Betty clapped her hands. To confirm this, a sailor came down between the berths announcing that they were free to go on deck. Annie and Betty were the first to the companionway, but Betty beat Annie onto the steps.

‘Look how close the land is!’ Betty paused at the top step. ‘You can almost touch it. Come and look, Annie.’

‘I will if you get your backside out of my way.’ Annie gave her sister a push on the rump and Betty stepped out of the companionway and onto the deck, allowing her through.

Patches of windswept vegetation and sand dunes as white as virgin snow drifted past. Off the starboard beam waves crashed onto a rocky headland. The sun sat low on the western horizon and the ship appeared to be sailing on a sea of liquid gold that made both girls gasp with delight.

‘Excuse me, miss,’ someone said from behind, and Annie realised she was now blocking the companionway. She apologised and climbed onto the deck.

The warmth was gone from the wind. It pushed out of the south-east now and carried a chill that made Annie wish she had brought a shawl up with her. She needn’t have worried. Her parents appeared on deck a few minutes later and Maree carried shawls for both girls, insisting that they put them on immediately. Then together they made their way forward and stood near the capstan to watch the setting sun.

‘Such a display of colour,’ Maree said, and Annie could sense the delight in her voice, the first in months.

‘Tomorrow,’ said Annie. ‘Tomorrow we will stand on Australia.’ She pulled her sister to her and they hugged each other with excitement as they watched a golden sky above a golden sea.

‘Everything in this country is gold,’ her father remarked, his family standing around him. ‘We just have to work at getting our share now.’

The horse’s flanks were a lather of foaming sweat as Toby wheeled the wagonette in a tight circle around the Bunyong Creek Hotel. The sun had set while he’d been on the road and he used the waning light of dusk to find his way. Crossing the track that was also the main street, he headed for the creek where a string of tents marked the camps of travellers who had stopped to rest and slake their thirst before continuing northwards to the diggings at Mount Alexander and Bendigo Creek.

Two diggers sat beside a campfire outside the first tent in the row. Toby reined the horse to a stop and the men scowled up at him, waving their hands in front of their faces in annoyance at the cloud of dust that settled around them. One digger, his face a mass of ginger whiskers, spat a glob of dust-stained spittle onto the ground. ‘What’s the hurry, young fella?’