Gladstone to Mount Morgan

It was a relaxed departure from Gladstone and the Kin Kora Caravan Park. As we did not have a very long journey there was no rush. I refilled all the water tanks on the Karavan and put some into the tank under the Mazda’s canopy. That was all necessary as we will be visiting a farm and do not plan to get water from them as it is so precious to them in the unpredictable climate.

Our departure was west onto the Dawson Highway which eventually gets to Biloela. The major junction of this highway and the northerly Bruce Highway is where we turned towards Rockhampton.

As we drove north, we passed quite a few trains (these were electric) travelling in both directions. There is a major rail network that runs beside a lot of the Highway. A lot of coal travels on this line from the Central Queensland coal fields.

Soon we arrived at the turn to MountMorgan which is about 15 kilometres south of Rockhampton. This takes you over to the Leichardt Highway and is also a short cut to the famous Gracemere Saleyards.

On this highway we travelled through the village of Bouldercombe then we started our ascent up the winding and steep road that climbs the Razorback Range. It is not a road for very long vehicles. Quite soon, we arrived in Mount Morgan and found the Mount Morgan Motel andCaravan Park. One of the cheaper parks and its amenities are very pleasant. We soon set up and made a coffee on board the Karavan.

Then we went into the CBD and did a little minor shopping at the IGA store. We returned to the Karavan to eat our sandwiches that Prue had made before we left Gladstone.

Around 1300, we joined 2 other couples in the park and joined onto a tour run by TMC (Town Mine Cave) Tour. There were 15 people on board to do this tour. The owner, John was the driver and his daughter, Heike, was the very well informed guide. We highly recommend this tour as it gives you a lot of sites only available to the tour.

The tour started with a drive by of the Railway Station and Information Centre. It is heritage listed. The rail lines were decommissioned in the 1980s and there is only 3 kilometres available for tourist use left. Many buildings were destroyed by fire over the years with many being rebuilt.

The State high School was built in 1908, originally to teach technical and trades skills, and formerly became a high school in 1912 becoming the first high school in Queensland. Today, there are around 250 students in the school.

Nearby is the School of Arts which is heritage listed and is currently undergoing external restoration. Further along the street is the Historical Museum that traces the history of the gold mining as well as the whole town’s history.

Also, not far away is the Mount Morgan Masonic Temple. It was built in 1903 with a cost then of only 1500 pounds. It is a beautiful building.

A short drive from the town took us to the main water supply dam which originally was built to supply only the mines but in more recent years the water has been reticulated to the town. It is used for domestic water as well as recreation. It holds about 12,000 mega litres of water. It is not so big but apparently very deep. Just 3 years ago it was down to holding just 3% of its capacity due to lack of rain.

As we returned from the dam, we past the swinging bridge which is the last remaining bridge of that type. There were up to 8 when the mine was working. They allowed the miners to attend to work even if the Dee River, over which they crossed, was in flood. The town was divided up into various areas that were dominated by various nationalities. Many streets retain names of places from overseas or names from those countries.

 

Our next destination was the lookout. From there we could see not only the mine area but also most of the town. Especially dominant is the larger of 2 remaining stacks which is about 70 metres tall and is believed to contain about 750,000 bricks. It is hard to imagine that the hill that was there was higher than the stack and was mined for gold. The gold being contained in ironstone meant it was quite difficult to extract. Silver and copper were mined from the same area. There is still a range of former mining equipment on site to be seen.

Now the whole mine area is subject to environmental rehabilitation. There are several processes to contain the runoff from the mine as well to reduce the captured water within the mine.

 

The final item we viewed was the cavern with its footprints of dinosaurs on the ceiling. These footprints have been authenticated. They were discovered after many years of clay extraction for lining the smelters. The miners dug out the clay which was below a sandstone layer. An incredible amount was removed, hundreds of tonnes, and now there is this massive cavern remaining. In recent years a colony of some form of bats has taken residence in the cavern. The footprints are very obvious when pointed out.

 

So the very informative trip ended back at the Caravan Park for a quiet evening.