Self-guided Mining Heritage Tour: Far North Queensland, Cairns
This tour assumes you’ll be driving a conventional vehicle, though note that hire car companies don’t like you taking them off the bitumen. It assumes you will not need four wheel drive though these vehicles are very handy to have.Cairns is 4-5 hours’ drive north of Townsville, or a short plane ride by Qantaslink. It is well set up for visitors with a range of accommodation for any budget. You can also take trips to the Great Barrier Reef or drive north along the spectacular Cook Highway to Port Douglas and further to world heritage listed rainforests at Daintree and Cape Tribulation, or up to the many attractions of the Atherton Tableland.
If you’re researching mining history topics for this region, a visit to the Cairns Historical Society must be on your agenda. The Research Centre is in temporary accommodation in the Old Post Office, corner of Grafton and Hartley Streets.
http://www.northernherald.com.au/tourism.html
From Cairns, travel north along the Cook Highway and turn left onto the Kuranda Range Road at Smithfield Shopping Centre, and take the Kennedy Highway to Atherton via Mareeba. Alternatively go up the Gillies Highway to Yungaburra and thence to Atherton, turning off the Bruce Highway at Gordonvale, south of Cairns (the Gillies is not
recommended for those suffering motion sickness!)
Drive through Atherton main street onto the Herberton road. On the left just over the bridge is the Atherton Chinese Temple (Hou Wang Miau).
The Chinese came in large numbers to the Palmer River Goldfield in the 1870s and when the gold ran out, many settled around Atherton to grow maize. There is an excellent
interpretation centre telling their story, and the last tin and timber Chinese temple in Australia. Once, there were many of these little temples on the mining fields.
Open Wed to Sun 11am - 4pm (last tour starts 3.30). Adults $10.00 Children 5-15yrs $5.00Concession $7.50Family $25.00 (2 adults 4 children) National Trust Members: Free
http://www.houwang.org.au/ .
Continue up the range to Herberton, a tin mining centre dating from 1880.
As you enter the town, on the left is the Herberton Historic Village, a large museum which is mainly about the social history of the tin mining communities of the district (though there’s some machinery and an ‘underground mine’ to keep the mining technophiles happy). There’s a nice restaurant there too.
Open 9-5, last entry 3.30pm. Adults $27 children $12 concession $24 family $65 children under 4 free. Dogs on leash welcome.
http://www.historicvillageherberton.com.au/
Continue into Herberton. Look for signs to the Mining Museum and Information Centre. Beside the museum is a walking track to the Great Northern Mine, which has an intact winding house and plant.
Museum open 7 days 9-4, free.
Go back on your tracks and when back on top of the hill near the Historic Village, turn left at Mt St Bernard’s School. This mainly dirt road of around 20km takes you through a former tin mining landscape to the small village of Irvinebank, home of base metal
mining entrepreneur John Moffat. His home is now Loudoun House Museum
open 10am-12 and 1pm-4pm 7 days a week, adults $6 concession $4 children $2.
http://users.qldnet.com.au/~loudounhouse/index.html
There are several historic buildings in the town, some of which are open for inspection. Continue through the town and look to the right a short distance out of town for the turnoff to the Vulcan Mine, once the deepest and most productive tin mine in Australia. The iron headframe is spectacular and there are plenty of brick and concrete foundations and structures. There’s also a small but deep open cut on the hill above the headframe so watch the dog and the kids.
If you have a 4 wheel drive or a reasonably tough car, continue on the dirt road past Montalbion dam and town site (a former silver mine with the remains of a smelter) through Emuford to Petford. Emuford has the most intact tin crushing mill in Australia, dating from 1911. It has everything you could want in a working mill, down to the spare parts. If the owner John Fitzgerald is home, you might be able to arrange a tour with him for a donation (he spends it all on saving the mill!) ph. 07 40948304. If you ever wanted to meet a Luhrig vanner in the flesh, here’s your chance.
At Petford, you can turn right onto the Burke Developmental Road and go back to Cairns via Mareeba, or turn left and continue on to Chillagoe.
If you don’t want to shudder your way over the dirt corrugations between Irvinebank and Petford but you want to go to Chillagoe, go back to Atherton and head north to Mareeba. Go through the main street and once over Emerald Creek, turn left onto the Chillagoe road. The road is partly dirt as you get closer to Chillagoe, but kept in good condition. On the road to Chillagoe, the Lappa Hotel is worth a visit. This was at the junction of the Chillagoe and Mt Garnet railways, both mining railways.
Keep an eye out to the right at the deserted townsite of Koorboora for mullock heaps of wolfram mines. Nearer to Chillagoe you’ll pass by blocks of marble at the marble mines. Chillagoe has plenty of accommodation, from motel style units to camping, though you’ll need to book for July as this is peak tourist season in the north. Try the Chillagoe Tourist Park which has a café attached and camping facilities with BBQ, or you can get meals at the two pubs.
Chillagoe has the Chillagoe Smelters, which became a State enterprise notorious for the Mungana Scandal ruining the career of Federal treasurer ‘Red Ted’ Theodore.
Unfortunately the discovery of asbestos lagging sent Queensland National Parks into a spin and they’ve blocked access to the entire site – you can only survey it from a nearby hill. It’s still worth a visit.
Also visit the Chillagoe Cemetery, which has graves of smelter workers and miners killed in accidents. It’s on the road to the air-strip.
Chillagoe is famous for its spectacular limestone bluffs and its caves – you might need to book cave tours in advance in peak tourist season at http://www.chillagoehub.com.au/ but there are also walking tracks in the national parks around.
Follow the main street north and drive around 16km to Mungana, a deserted mining town. On the town side (to the left of the highway), drive in over the railway line and follow the well-made dirt road leading north past abandoned house sites. Look around the foot of the first limestone bluff close to the road, where there’s a 1950s lime kiln using much older technology. It’s misshapen after a close encounter with a cyclone (see picture below). In the other direction south, if you have a four wheel drive, follow the road and railway to the Girofla and Lady Jane mines and a little beyond them, the remains of the Girofla smelter. Girofla mine has a large beam for the pump still balanced over the pit. Go back to the highway and drive about 50 metres further north to the turnoff to the right to Mungana caves, ‘wild’ caves you can explore yourself. There are Aboriginal rock art sites and if you follow the track along the fence which turns off at the main rock art site you’ll find the Mungana cemetery. The fence leading to the cemetery was also one leg of the horse race track.
Return towards Mareeba. At the small town of Dimbulah, turn left in the middle of town and take the road to Mt Mulligan, Tyrconnell and Thornborough. This soon becomes a dirt road but accessible to ordinary vehicles. It follows the route of the old railway to Mt Mulligan and in places you will be driving along the railway itself.
At the turnoff to Thornborough, stop to look at the cemetery and then cross the Hodgkinson River into the near-abandoned townsite of Thornborough. Have a look around, but be careful not to trespass on the one occupied house. Note the little Canton Hotel, once Chinese-owned.
Keep driving through Thornborough to the Tyrconnell gold mine. This has a working stamp battery and extensive remains of the mine. There is accommodation on site – the mine manager’s house is a treat – but check ahead to make sure it’s open for inspection. http://www.tyrconnell.com.au/
Keep driving to Kingsborough, another abandoned town. At the top of a short but steep dirt road is the General Grant mine, owned by the Tyrconnell people but accessible to visitors. There’s a water-tube boiler and a Schram air compressor, and a winding plant with post brakes (below).
Go back to the main road at Thornborough and keep driving north to Mt Mulligan. This is one of Australia’s most spectacular sandstone mountains and has the Mt Mulligan coal mine and town remains at its foot. The cemetery holds most of the 75 victims of the Mt Mulligan coal dust explosion, still one of Australia’s worst mining disasters. The former hospital is now the Mt Mulligan station homestead and the owners offer various activities and camping sites - http://mountmulligan.com/index.html or you can just have a look around.
Return to the Chillagoe-Cairns highway and continue to Mareeba.
Mareeba Heritage Museum and Information Centre on the south side of town is worth a look – it’s mostly agricultural history, as this was a famous tobacco growing region, but has some mining displays eg. on Mt Mulligan.
http://www.mareebaheritagecentre.com.au/ Open 7 days 8-4 (information centre 9-5) donation.
The Atherton Tableland has a lot of great natural attractions, nearly all free, and it’s worth spending a day or two to explore them.
Atherton to Croydon
This is a two-day trip and is all sealed roads unless you decide to go via Forsayth. Go to Atherton and take the road to Ravenshoe and Mt Garnet. Mt Garnet is a tin and copper mining town and had a large mine and smelter. It’s now in the middle of a modern mine but you might be able to arrange a visit to what’s left of the smelter, and the well-preserved assay house (now the mines office). http://www.csdtin.com.au/
There are some non-mining things to check out on the way to Mt Surprise eg. at Innot Hot Springs, the hot springs are upstream from the bridge, in the sand of the stream bed. Look for the slim Queensland bottle trees in the 40 Mile Scrub.
You might like to stop at Mt Surprise and check out the gem shop (topazes and agates) or take a tour of the famous Lava Tubes at Undarra to the south http://undara.com.au/ or http://www.bedrockvillage.com.au/tours.html . Mt Surprise is the doorway to the large
Etheridge gold and mineral field. If you want to stay the night, I recommend the Bedrock Village Park.
If you have that tough car or 4WD, you could take the dirt road south to Einasleigh and check out the remains of the Einasleigh copper mine, which operated on and off from the 1860s, then keep on to Forsayth. There are numerous mine remains in the Forsayth area like Hawkin’s Hill – ask the locals. Another local tourist attraction is Cobbold Gorge http://www.cobboldgorge.com.au/ and further south, Agate Creek for the fossickers (4WD recommended).
http://www.dnrm.qld.gov.au/mining/fossicking/area-guides/north/agate-creek .
Take the road to Georgetown. Take note of the Antbed House if you come into town on the Forsayth side – the house was built in 1889 by a mining surveyor and its walls are made of bricks made from termite’s nests.
In Georgetown, visit the TerrEstrial information centre 8am – 5pm
http://www.etheridge.qld.gov.au/terrestrial which houses a magnificent mineral collection (“small fee” to view). Georgetown was the main centre of the Etheridge
goldfield and has some nice timber buildings. The local mines are on the east bank of the Etheridge River, downstream from the bridge.
Go back to the highway and continue west to Croydon. Note the Cumberland Chimney and dam by the side of the highway. This short-lived gold mine was floated on English capital and the motto was ‘spare no expense’. The white heaps of fine sand near the dam are cyanide tailings. On the opposite side of the highway is what remains of the mine.
Croydon - This well preserved gold mining town has large displays of mining
equipment, the remarkable remains of the Iguana Consols (winding engine, compressor, Cornish boiler on site) and a range of historic buildings to visit
http://www.croydon.qld.gov.au/heritage-precinct . The Visitor Information Centre
(Monday to Saturday 9-4.30) has displays and can direct you to more mining remains which litter the surrounding countryside. Train buffs might like a ride on the Gulflander railmotor which runs between Croydon and the river port of Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria once a week. There are shorter trips out and back as packages. Ask at the Visitor Information Centre or see
http://www.gulflander.com.au/Pages/TimetableandFares.aspx . There’s a good Shire Council-run caravan park.
Cyanide plant at Belmore Ck, one of the many mining sites near Croydon.
Either keep going to Normanton and Karumba and go barramundi fishing, or return to Cairns!
Cairns to Cooktown (all bitumen road). This is another two day trip.
Cooktown was the port for the Palmer River goldfield. Go to Mareeba and continue north. Just before you hit Mount Molloy, turn left and have a look at the cemetery, where prospector/miner/adventurer James Venture Mulligan (who began the Palmer rush) is
buried. A turnoff to the left near the creek crossing will take you to the Mt Molloy copper mine but who knows what state the road will be in.
On a knoll beside the road as you enter Mt Molloy, there are three water-tube boilers and steam engine which ran a former sawmill.
Once through Mt Molloy and over Rifle Ck (free camping area nearby) take the Cooktown road. You’ll pass by the Palmer River Roadhouse which is all you’ll see of this famous alluvial goldfield unless you have a 4WD and some good local advice. Cooktown has the National Trust-run James Cook Museum which includes some Palmer history, as well as stuff about some blighter who wandered up the coast in 1770 and nearly got shipwrecked near here. Open 9-4 $10 adult, $3 child, $8 concession, $23 families, Trust members free. http://www.nationaltrust.org.au/qld/JamesCookMuseum . For other things to do, see http://www.tourismcapeyork.com/ .
Note that masochists with a 4WD can always take the coastal road to Cooktown from Cape Tribulation north of Cairns, via Mossman and Port Douglas. It’s called the
Bloomfield Track and is guaranteed to provide some occasions to get your heart rate up, especially if it has been raining.
Enjoy Cooktown! There are wonderful goldfields further up the Cape – Lukin,
Ebagoolah, Wenlock – with lots of fascinating remains but you’ll need local help to find them, plus that 4WD.
