On the move again

Atherton is a picturesque rural community about 92 kms from Cairns by road.   Predominately  a farming area with all the usual suspects for a tropical climate.....bananas, sugar cane, potatoes, peanuts, maize, avocados, coffee, tea, pineapples and other tropical fruits such as mangos, papaya, limes, dragon fruit and lychees.  Of course there are a number of farms gates with fresh vegies as well.   There is a buffalo farm that produces buffalo milk and cheese, plus goats and cows for milk products and artisan cheeses, hand made chocolates, fruit wines and liquors, beautiful waterfalls,  B & B's, a number of dams for water sports and fishing, camping....tell me again why I am leaving......

Atherton as seen from Bones Knob, Tolga

Some locals....Curlews, noisy little things at night

Look carefully, Nick is there ;)

View from Hallorans Hill

Now these are horns!!!

The truth is we will most probably come back here to live when we have finished our travels, but that is well into the future. 

Our first stop.......Charters Towers, a heritage city, which is 483 kms south west of Atherton, where we have spent two days touring.

The World Theatre

Inside the Stock Exchange Arcade.  A National Trust building, the Stock Exchange Exchange was built in  1887-88

City Hall - built in 1891, it was originally the Queensland National Bank

Post Office, built in 1892, the clock tower was added in 1989

Charters Towers sense of humour

The approaching Storm

Gold was discovered here in 1871 by Hugh Mosman, George Clarke, John Fraser and the party's horse boy, a young Aboriginal, Jupiter, who is credited with finding the nugget of alluvial gold which started the rush.  The goldfield was proclaimed in 1892 which turned Charters Towers (or just Charters to the locals) into a bustling metropolis, which in its heyday boasted as being the second largest city in Queensland. 

The Royal Private Hotel, built in 1988.....a bygone era restored. 

Between 1872 and 1924, approximately 30 vertical underlying shafts and tunnels were dug by the large number of miners who worked their claims in the hope of fining the reefs below Towers Hill.  Many of these are still visible. At the height of the gold rush there where 29 crushing mills, 95 hotels and one of the very first regional Stock Exchanges in Australia.  

The buildings are beautiful and although it was 39c in the shade, we still walked around the town, following a trail what is known as the "one square mile". We visited the Stock Exchange which is now an arcade, the Assay Mining Museum, the World Theatre which is a beautiful building.  There are so many lovely buildings in Charters, including the Visitors Centre which is housed in what was once the Union Bank, built in 1880.  

We drove out to the Macrossan Bridge Flood Marker to see the heights that the Burdekin River has reached over the years....it is hard to imagine the river being that high when you are standing next to it. 

Macrossan Bridge Flood Marker - the second from the top was the flood level in 2009.

We also drove up Towers Hill, saw some mine shafts and some of the 30 bunkers which were used to store bombs, detonators and ammunition for use by the Townsville based RAAF which is 92 kms away.  The camouflaged bunkers had ramparts of rock rubble placed near the entrances to slow down and deflect the force of any explosion inside and none of the bunkers face each other to ensure that an explosion in one did not set off explosions in others.  

A Seismograph Station was installed in 1958, the International Geophysical Year.   Since 1962, the Towers Hill Station has been part of the United States of America Iris world wide network of 120 seismic stations.  Recordings are digitised and sent to the University of Queensland in Brisbane and then on to the USA.  

Some facts about Charters Towers supplied by the Lions Club include:

• Charters is 1100 feet or 335.2 m above sea level
• The annual average rainfall is 644 mm
• The first gold escort took 29 000 oz out of Charters Towers, and the second 31 000 oz
• In 1887, gold was $4.40 an oz.
• In 1887 a miner eared $6.00 per week.
• A tradesman earned 80 cents per day
• A bottle of 3 star Brandy cost 80 cents.  
• In 1875, rump steak was 10 cents a kilo.
• The population was once 30,000.
• The deepest shaft on the field was the Brilliant Extended.....3040 feet or 926.6 m.
• The largest nugget was the Prince  of Wales, weighing in at 143 oz 12 dwts, found by Tom Hoy. The charters Towers fire Fire Brigade purchased its first motorised vehicle in 1916. 
• The Charters Towers Region which includes Pentland, Greenvale, Homestead, Ravenswood, Mingela and Balfes Creek is larger that the State of Tasmania. 
• During WWII, 15,000 US personnel were stationed in Charters Towers.

It is the wrong time of year to be touring around here.  It you like heritage architecture, gold mining and anything to do with WWII, then this is where you should come but do so in the dry season.  Maybe we will return one day to spend more time here.  

We packed up this morning in the rain, and headed off to Clermont on our way to Brisbane.  The rain seems to have abated for now, but it looks like there is more on the way.  Tomorrow we are off to Dululu.