Mt Mulligan 2018

   

Mt Mulligan is an old miners town in the Mareeba shire. 160 kilometres west of Cairns.

From Dimbulah it is a good 1.5 hours drive on a dirt road but 

the trip is well worth it.

The road may be dirt but is is drive-able  for all types of cars, No caravan.

Would not use this road if it had rained. (red bull dust) sink to your axles.

The mine  of Mt Mulligan is now closed after a

 series of explosions at 9:25am on September 19, 1921 took the lives of 75 coal miners working in the then-bustling township.

We sent a good couple of hours just wondering through the town which is marked with  small metal signs saying where each store or house was. There are some machinery and mining items around still but most are just concrete slabs. 

Town of Mt Mulligan Qld

Mt Mulligan wikapedia

map of mt mulligan

 

CHILLAGO SMELTER TOWERS 03/09/2018

Monday 3rd September 2018

Smelter towers at Chillago, these towers were once a very active mine, today they are just a tall, deterioration

reminder of what was. They were all built by hand, bricks and all  carted by wheelbarrow or horse and cart. Mostly by wheelbarrow.

The slag heap also carted by hand.

Note the large rock pile to right of photo, this is what this area is covered in and would of had to be removed before they started finding any  minerals or ore which is what they mined for , a hard job in the harsh dry condition of Chillago and surrounding areas of Qld.
Standing on the top of this slag heap lookout, make you stop and think of the harsh condition people would of lived in, no modern machinery like they use today.
  Most people come here to see the Chillago Caves some don't even take the short drive to come and see these tall chimneys 

Tyrconnell, Kingsborough and Thornborough

Tyrconnell, Kingsborough and Thornborough

An extra special treat /drive today.
I got to see a very different side of the North. The side that is the reason Port Douglas and Cairns even exist. It was all about mining, mining history. So there you go, without the early mining history of North QLD maybe those wonderful, thriving, coastal tourist destinations might not have come to into being, or at least so early.

 From the township of Dimbulah we head North onto the Mt Mulligan Road, going over the Walsh River Bridge before taking a right hand turn onto Leadingham Creek Rd heading to Tryconnell Dam.



Our first stop was Tyrconnell a gold mine that was established in 1876. Gold did funny things to people in the past causing them to rush to new destinations, engulfed with gold fever and wanting to make their millions. Now what is so special about Tyconnell is that it is still home to an original working battery, the only one left from the 12 that were in the area in its heyday. It is hard to imagine that Tyconnell was once home to 10 000 people especially when now it is home to just 11.We couldn't get to see the old battery as it was closed.

 We retraced our wheel tracks and headed off in a new direction stopping at Thornborough cemetery. We had passed what remained of what was a substantial town earlier Thornborough township.
I found the cemeteries interesting but find it curious how they still hold so much emotion within them. I know that sounds weird but I guess it is that I 'feel' for those families who lost members in such harsh conditions and then you see a grave with the names of five children who all died very young and wonder at why the families stayed and continued. Something that was very interesting though was that all but one of the graves didn't have a birth date but instead had a date of death and and age, most including the months as well.



Our next quick stop was to check out the Kingsborough cemetery. Even though I knew that it was a old cemetery,  the reality of the era and the conditions people would of  lived in. It was sad to see that most of the intact graves nestled in among the grass,  some quiet over grown, were those of very young children and young adults. 
After walking around the small cemetery. We get back into the car and continue driving on the unsealed dirt road, winding our way through the hills for another 7 kms into the town of Kingsborough.
A sheer cliff wall to one side of the road and a lovely view of the town of Kingsborough on the other side of a narrow dirt road. 
It is here that Greg's maternal grand father was born and lived.

The land out here is very dry and condition would not of been any better years ago either.

A view of the town of Kingsborugh

 Kingsborough Queensland is like an oasis in the middle of the desert nestled into a bend on McLeods Ck road


Apparently the town was originally called Kingston back in 1878 and was a gold mining township with a few hotels, a church, courthouse, school, numerous stores, a blacksmith and a lemonade factory.
By 1887 it had a population of 50 people, but today, Ike Sjofors is the only man that permanently resides here and there is no actual township anymore.