28/9/17 A different day

 Following on from our tour around town , here's some more old buildings - a couple of old houses .

 They're big on verandahs that they can close in via shutters , louvres , or windows , and most important is to have an air flow under the house as well .
 The Stock Exchange Arcade was definitely a winner , this is a shed out the back and the view from the back of the arcade . This is still in original condition as well !!

 We also went back to the Target shop to have a look inside , here's the results .

 This is the upstairs section , with stamped metal below the verandah railing .

 Then there's the ceiling down below the verandah .

  Time for a change of pace , we've been looking at the old buildings , now we'll look at something else - the biggest cemetery we've seen outside the major cities - this one is between 30 to 40 acres !!!

 There are hundreds of grave here , all in various stages of repair , some falling apart , others immaculate , others just have a disc cemented in the ground with a number on it . The residents came from all over the world , creating Charters Towers as it has evolved today .

 Today we headed north and then east along Hervey Range Rd to the village of Hervey Range and the " claimed " oldest building in North Queensland - The Hervey Range Historic Teahouse .
 The country up this way is dusty and dry , most of the creeks are bone dry and would only flow after heavy rain . We crossed over the Burdekin River again , it too looked to be dry .

 Till we got over to the other side .

 We soon arrived at the Army's Townsville Training Area , both sides of the road - it's a huge area spreading to the east , north & south .
 Finally we arrived at the Historic Teahouse - formerly the Eureka Hotel built in 1865 to feed & water all the people riding horses up the mountains from the coast going west to the gold rush , and further up to the gulf . It's a very popular spot for the locals & tourists alike .
 The Teahouse is a slab sided hut , corrugated iron roof , all very rustic . There's tables & chairs in various rooms , and plenty more in the lawn area out the front , and a hand made goods shop in one room , here are some photo's .

 Just down the road is Hervey Range Lookout , views are to Townsville - only half an hours drive away , unfortunately it was very hazy today , so it was a bit hard to see Magnetic Island and Townsville .

 To the left of the lookout is a large pile of rock , seemingly placed there , but is all natural , the rocks are whitish grey in colour and upon climbing up to the top I discovered they are covered in moss & lichen .

  Heading back to Charters Towers , we took another road - 68 klms of gravel road to Mingela - 60klms of that was also past the Army's training area again - both sides of the road again .
 Back to Charters and the temperature was once again bouncing between 33 & 34 degrees , so it was down to the pool for a cool down .
 Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1E-VJERwh0MylBXXgufbOwtCE9WA&usp=sharing

24/9/17 Around the towers

 The weather has been rather warm , topping out between 33 & 35 for the last few days - quite pleasant , it's a dry heat so it's quite bearable , the pool has been an efficient heat reducer as well !!
 Saturday was golf day on the oldest course in Queensland - all 9 holes of it - 18 tee positions though. All went well and I scored 39 pts , so 3 better than my handicap , and when I left the club I was in a tie for 1st place with the guy I played with , can't complain about that !!
 Today was time to check out town and all the buildings - gives you an idea of what the past was like and how much money was being tossed around - and how much money was being pulled out of the ground - there were 92 hotels in the city !!! now there are 8 !! That's what a gold rush can do for a place .
  Gold was discovered in 1871 by a young aboriginal retrieving horses that had run away in a thunderstorm . They retrieved 1,600 ounces of gold from the surface , before starting to dig the ground !!! Many mines were started and Charters Towers became the second largest city in Queensland at the time !! Here's some of the buildings .

The Police Station

   This building is now a Target store - it was turned into a department store that employed 140 assistants !!   The entrance area is amazing , there is a 5m wide verandah , tiled , and with marble steps , and leadlight display cabinets that you can walk all the way around , pressed metal ceilings as well . The raked ceilings inside the shop have the first fibre sheets that were imported from France as linings - we chatted to Stan Pollards son in law for 20mins !!

 The Post Office & Clock Tower

The Stock Exchange Arcade

 There are several murals around town , this one shows the Pyrites Works  , giving you an idea of what it used to look like on Towers Hill .

 This is Towers Hill from the Rotary Lookout

 There are many fine old houses here as well , this is just one of them .

 We then headed out to the weir on the Burdekin River - the cities water supply .

 This is below the weir , showing what the flooding does to these old tea trees

 Here's a very healthy bull , quietly grazing as we drove past on our way back into town .

 Another bit of trivia for you all - Charters Towers was one of several airstrips used during WW2 , they preferred to be higher up away from the coast , as they could take off and not waste too much fuel gaining height - they just flew low level over the mountains to the coast and they were already over 2,000 ft or more - saving on fuel , and allowing them to fly further on their bombing missions . They used too much fuel when taking off with a full load of fuel and bombs & ammunition at sea level on the coast . So there you go !!

  That's it for today , here's a map link : -  https://drive.google.com/open?id=16JeQ2PlC_siU2UteVxpszc4Po_E&usp=sharing

22/9/17 All downhill

 Time to leave Ravenshoe and head into new territory , first we'll cover some old ground to Innot Springs and further , then leave Highway 1 and head down the Kennedy development Rd .
 We knew Ravenshoe is the highest town in Qld , but didn't think about the road south , instead of being downhill , we were climbing and got to 750m asl . The vegetation was changing as we went , from taller trees to shorter trees and much sparser vegetation .

 Knowing we were close to Undarra National Park explained a lot to us - this was all part of the volcanic landscape , plenty of rocks and darker soils . Old craters , or what was left of them dot the landscape .
 We left the Kennedy Development Rd and turn onto the Gregory Development Rd and head toward Greenvale - that's tonight's stop .

 Arriving at Greenvale , we find a little town that used to ride on the back of mining . The town has been set up to supply housing for what was a nearby nickel mine . The mining company set it up with streets , playgrounds , swimming pool , school and there's even a golf club !! The supermarket is closed now , the medical centre is only utilised on certain days , there's the 3 Rivers Hotel , a caravan park and a petrol station / roadhouse .
 The town is now very quiet , there must still be some families as there was some work being done to the school , and we saw someone playing golf while we walked around town . It was a nice quiet spot for the night .
 

  After a good night's sleep we headed off again , today's drive taking us to Charters Towers . Crossing quite a few creeks on the way , most of which are just dry creek beds - it reminded us of WA where most rivers etc are dry . This one had some water , and flows into the Burdekin River , which is closeby . The road follows the river and in some places is close to it .

 This one was aptly named Sandy Creek .

 Some of the road cuttings are interesting , the colours of the soil /  minerals were quite amazing - reds , orange & green . This one not quite as colourful , but still okay .

  We had a bit of single lane bitumen driving to get through , fortunately not meeting any road trains on these sections !!

 We found another river with some water , quite surprising .

 Surprises kept coming , we had some camels - 6 - wandering inside property fences , then a deer !!! We weren't expecting that one just wandering across the road !!

 Charters Towers appeared , and we were close to lunch time , so checked in for a week and had some lunch . This is the rotunda in Lissner Park , quite ornate .

 The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing , and also a swim in the pool - the cool pool , very refreshing in the 33 degree heat .


  After a warm night , we slept without the quilt for most of the night - first time this year !!! Today we headed up to Towers Hill Lookout . Quite an impressive Lookout with explanations of the Pyrite Factory used to extract gold from the tailings . The hill comprises of mostly granite rock and would have been a hell of a job digging mine shafts in it !! The factory pulled 37,430 pounds worth of gold out of the tailings in 3 years - that would correspond to millions of dollars in todays terms .
 This is the view over town to the northeast .

  This is the view down Mossman St .

 There are many fine old buildings in town , that will be subject to closer observation at a later date .

 There'a an amphitheatre beside the lookout where they run movies on local history . There are many signs explaining lot's about the discovery of gold by an aboriginal boy retrieving horses that had ran away during a thunderstorm .
 There was a strange moth on one of the signs - never seen one like this before .

 The Pyrite Factory had a chimney that rose 55m above the top of the hill , it was deemed dangerous to aircraft by the Americans during WW2 , so was demolished . The 120,000 bricks are still lying where they fell - this is some of them - look closely , they look like rocks .

 This is the lat part still standing .

 Whistling Kites and hawks love this hill , with any sort of breeze they can ridge soar rather than having to put too much effort into flying .

 These are some of the remains of the buildings still in place , we got to drive around the base of the hill , right past all of this .

 This is the remains of the tailings - very polluted and all sorts of colours .

 Another part of the history of the hill , is the WW2 remains . There are 27 concrete bunkers all around the western side of the hill . They were used to store munitions for the RAAF - they were built facing different directions so that there wouldn't be a chain reaction if they were bombed . This is just a couple .

 The 2 bunkers closest to the road up the hill have audiovisual presentations set up in them - quite informative . The were many Americans here during the war when the Japanese were trying to take over countries in the Pacific - we were on that list !!!!


  Today we did some shopping before lunch , then headed out to Macrossan Bridge - where the road and railway cross over the Burdekin River . There's a free camp on the east side of the river and many tracks that lead down beside the river and to the railway bridges - there are 2 - one that's not in use anymore beside the newer one .

This is the road bridge .

 Got the drone out for a fly , gives a different viewpoint of the bridges .

 Heading back over the road bridge , there's a marker post with flood heights on it .

 The top one was from 1946 - 21.79metres , the next one down was 2009 -20.75metres - that's a lot of water , the river would be about 200m wide , so that's awful lot of water !!!
 That's it , up to date again , back for a refreshing swim . Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1n08iCtOoYI4_3tWUbH-YiGXR2Ic&usp=sharing