Enough of those bits , breakfast done , we were off to Chillagoe - where's that you say - about 150 kms from Mareeba to the west - about 2 hours drive .
What's at Chillagoe you ask - limestone caves and really don t know much more for the minute .
The drive out there was great , we drove through valleys , past hills , over hills into valleys , with the scenery changing as you get into the next valley . Even the trees were changing , one valley we went into , the foliage on the trees went from green to grey , termite mounds changed colours as well - from pale grey to red to orange to dark brown .
We weren't sure what to expect out this way , but the scenery was great - the mountains were terrific , the trees gradually got shorter & stragglier , there were dry creek beds and dusty gravel roads . The road is predominantly bitumen , but there were several sections that are still gravel . Lyn was driving this morning and on one gravel section , we met our first 3 trailer road train , and our second shortly after the first . We saw it coming and pulled over & stopped , as the road disappeared in a plume of dust . Then came a car following the road trains , and we still don't know how he could see the road !!
There is a train - The Savannahlander - that goes from Cairns to Herberton , and one of its stops is Almaden - we drove through there and saw the train on the way back . The tracks seem to need some maintenance though.
Continuing on , we started to find large white chunks of rock , the size of a small car , that seemed to be stacked in lines around dams etc. - They turned out to be marble seconds , and were placed around the edges of the old quarries so that cattle wouldn't fall in !!
We then had dark rocky outcrops start appearing near the road - almost looked like they had been burnt , but that was their colour , it was limestone .
More of these outcrops appeared and as we crested a hill , we spotted a large chimney - we had reached Chillagoe . It's a small village , seemingly in the middle of nowhere in particular !! We found " The Hub " , which is the information centre & cave tour booking office .
Tours in the caves start at 9 , 11 and 1:30 , it was 10:55 , so we bought our ticket and headed around for the 11 am tour - so we rushed around and went the 250m walk to the cave entrance where they were patiently waiting for us - we got there about 11:10 . We went in the Donna Cave , which gets its name from a structure just inside .
You can see her face in the shadow . From the outside , the caves seemed to be similar to Mt Etna near Rockhampton , but that was where the similarity ended . Once inside the first large cavern , you could see many formations and colours - greys of the limestone , creams and browns of the slow growing formations . The caves are pretty dry this time , due to the lack of normal wet season rains , however there is a pool of water , that unless it's lit up and you're told about it , you wouldn't know it's there . The water is crystal clear .
The walk through took us about an hour , there is a lot of bending down when moving around the cave , as the roof is very close sometimes , we crossed over & under and around the cave with our guide . Before we knew it , the tour was over and the guide was off for lunch before doing the next cave tour , but he did tell us to go up to the entrance to another cave for a view over Chillagoe township .
We looked around for a while before heading back to the ute , and going around to Balancing Rock - about 1klm away . Lunch was due to happen , so we sat an ate , before wandering up to the rock . This scenery reminded me of one of the Crocodile Dundee movies for some reason . The hike up to the balancing rock was a bit rugged - you wouldn't want to fall over on these rocks , they would rip you apart !!
We seem to be able to find a face in most of the rocks out here !!
Looking down into a cave
The balancing rock is pretty large - about the size of two cars !!!
We wandered around to check out some aboriginal rock art - what was there wasn't very good , it had faded and there were lot's of scratching / rather than painting at this site . The guide told us there was a better site about 15klm further out of town - time beat us on this one though .
With time running out , we headed over to the remains of the smelter , and wandered up to two lookouts . You used to be allowed to drive through the site on a self guided tour , but asbestos & risk assessments stopped that several years ago .
This factory would have employe hundreds of people in it's day . They closed it down during the war years , but fired it up again after the wars , until it was replaced by other smelters in locations closer to the metals & minerals . Apparently it never ran a profit from start to finish - 1901 to 1943 . In that time they treated 1,250,000 tons of ore and produced 60,000 tons of copper ; 50,000 tons of lead ; 6,500,000 ounces of silver and 175,000 ounces of gold !! The site would cover about 30 acres , would have had many buildings and houses - one of which was the Superintendents house that overlooked the smelter , and given the normal wind direction - they would have been inhaling most of the pollution coming out of the chimneys .
There is still a functioning limestone factory near the ruins .
With a two hour drive in front of us , we decided to head back to Mareeba , where we arrived back at 4:45 pm .
We could have spent a few days here to see a lot of it , instead of just scratching the surface , we now know better , and have had an awesome day !!!! We will be back !!!!
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