I remember both the Faraday and Wooreen school kidnappings as a kid. Ted Eastwood and Robert Boland kidnapped 6 students and their teacher from the small school at Faraday near Castlemaine in 1972. I remember my grandmother who was a school teacher telling me that she’d taught Robert Boland in Bendigo. The now disused school can still be seen on the side of the old Calder Hwy on the way to Bendigo.
Ted Eastwood escaped from Geelong Jail in Dec 1976 and while on the run he kidnapped 9 students and their teacher from Wooreen State School on the Leongatha Yarragon Rd in Feb 1977. He collected 16 hostages along the way and there was a subsequent shootout with police at a roadblock at Longford. Eastwood was wounded and arrested. He was released from jail in 1993. Don’t know anything about Eastwood using a cave at Mulungdung, but it’s not far from Woodside, so there may be some truth in it !
Maybe these old newspaper articles may help you John !
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...3456%2C4735810http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...=967%2C4780512