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
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