From Sandstone , we head to Leinster - a company town - BHP to be precise . If it wasn't for the BHP operated mines , it wouldn't exist . It's a small town built for the employees , fly in fly out and some do live here . There's a supermarket , aquatic centre , police & ambulance stations and a fuel station , and many accommodation blocks .
We drove into town - it's off the Goldfields Hwy - and found a spot to set up before going to a very comprehensive supermarket to pay our site fees , and to get a few things .
After getting organised we headed out to Agnew to the old township - another ghost town - the old mine is also in full production again , here's a photo of the gold mine plant .
Next door to the mine is some old equipment on display from Waroonga Gold Mine , there's a 20 head stamper battery that was steam powered . It's made mainly of timber - Oregon - and lot's of it . This must of made a lot of noise when in full swing .
The carpentry involved in it is amazing , pulley wheels hand made - these 2 are about 2m in diameter .
This vehicle has a story to go with it , it was used to take the gold bars down to Leonora and the gentleman who's job it was had a pistol in the car with him ( didn't have any ammunition to go with it however ) so he put the gold at his feet . One day he loaded the gold bars in the car and proceeded to drive off , he got down the road and realised the gold wasn't there anymore , it had fallen through a rusted hole in the floor ! He frantically drove back looking for the gold , which he found on the road a way back - talk about a hectic day at the office !!
This is an amalgamating pan , it was used for grinding the gold laden rock , sand or mineral into a powder . It had a large steel ball in the bowl and crushed everything as the bowl turned .
This Headframe was also from the Waroonga mine . The timber just beside the fence is also Oregon and was used for foundations of the battery .
We have been seeing a lot of these around the place - they are called Bungarra and are supposed to be delicious , also called Racehorse Goanna , they can certainly move when required .
This is part of the new 800 place Agnew Mine Village .
Due to the rather warm temperatures , 39 degrees & upwards , we headed off next morning to Leonora . The next photo is from a rest stop on the way - views are to another mine site - there's stacks of them .
Arriving in Leonora we find a wide main street and verandah fronted shops lining the street , there are roses growing in the medium strip .
This is one of a couple of hotels in town .
It was 39 degrees today , so we just closed up shop and turned the aircon on , fortunately we have 2 , as the one in the bedroom stopped working . It did cool down to 24 degrees at 9 pm . Next day it was 30 degrees by 9am , another warm one !
We headed out to yet another ghost town , Malcolm is it's name , on the way we called in at Malcolm Dam , which was fairly low .
Found one of the locals wandering around the area near the dam .
On the way to Malcolm townsite , we stumbled across a lookout sign , so went up for a look , it wasn't very high so the view wasn't the most spectacular . The rock that the hill was made up of was interesting - white sandstone .
The township was a bit further up the road , and was like most of the others we've seen , old bricks smashed lying all around the place , steel fibro and old rusty steel cans & random other things are still lying around the place . Even this old car body .
From Malcolm , we decided to go to a place called The Terraces - we found a track on the gps and went for it . Turns out we took a short / long cut through a mine site to the other side where we needed to go - this was the track we went on , and this is one of the wider sections !! The track followed a boundary fence and went for around 30klms straight north .
At the end of that little excursion we arrived at Mertondale - you guessed it , another ghost town ruin right beside another mine . This is the remains of the bakery .
From here we drove to The Top Of The Terraces - hmm waste of time that one - then headed back toward town . There was a turn to The Terraces - we seriously hummed and hah'd about going there after the earlier experience , but thought we'd have lunch out there before heading back to Leonora . We discovered another breakaway , this one about 20 metres high - it was an okay spot for lunch in the ute - the flies were horrendous again ! There were several picnic areas and a road leading off to the west . Here's some of the views .
After getting to the end of the track , we found the path less travelled winding it's way through the scrub . We couldn't see where it was leading us to , but we kept going anyway .
After another 4 or 5 kms , the track ended at a different section of the Terraces , there are lot's of caves , mainly used by kangaroos and goats , and the occasional humans .
It is a very impressive area , and certainly had our interest - we loved it !
This is where we ended up .
Curiously , this grey moss was growing on some of the rocks , in such a dry climate !!
We stumbled across some great caves , this one had access through a hole to the top of the Terrace , leading us to some great views .
Yep the drone came out as well for a different view .
We spent 3 hours here driving around checking the place out , we were very pleasantly surprised by it .
Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1a_5lnFm6ibZeoYwslT4JE38nZJfWF0Gn&usp=sharing
No comments:
Post a Comment