Gold was originally discovered here in 1873 but the rush started in 1874. The access to the area is pretty difficult so in the first few years of mining a lot of men lost their lives. If you are in the goldfields when the rainy season starts, some time between November and January, it can become impossible to get out. In those days Cooktown was the closest town, about 120 km away as the crow flies. The main gold extraction was done in the 1800’s up to mid to late 1880’s. The early mining was alluvial placer mining but eventually the European miners resorted to mining the quartz veins. Aussies refer to this as “hard rock mining”. By the late 1880’s the majority of the miners in the area were Chinese. They were successful at alluvial mining by working cooperatively. Apparently in 1878 there were about 1500 Europeans and 18000 Chinese in the area. The first town was Palmerville but quickly Maytown became the main town.
Seeing that this was one of the biggest gold strikes in Australia I thought I’d check it out. My starting point was at the Palmer River Roadhouse to camp overnight. It’s a good place to get local information. It’s a relatively nice roadhouse. An older stone structure. So I camped the night with a couple of beers and a steak sandwich in the roadhouse. The camping was OK, mostly because there weren’t many other campers. Their space is kind of limited and I guess that during the season it’d be assholes to elbows with other people. But for me, at the end of the season, there was only one other bunch of campers at a good distance.
There are a few ways into the goldfields. The really gnarly one is called the Old Coach Track. Descriptions say that you risk panel damage to your vehicle. Well, I’m not up for rack crawling so that one was out. The Whites Creek Road is supposed to be OK. The barkeep at the roadhouse indicated that it’s well graded and you can do it in a two wheel drive car. So that’s the route I took. I left the Roadhouse at about 9:30 and headed the 20 km or so to the start of the road. He was right, the road is gravel but well graded and wide. It’s also very twisty and turny and has some grades that are well over 10% so it’s like a roller coaster ride.
VideoThere’s a significant “lake” (billabong) just a short way along the drive. When I was there it was really pretty with several kinds of waterfowl and lily pads. But this classic looking cow was staring at me from a little peninsula about 200 meters away.
It’s hard to tell from the video above but it was really up and down and steep. I’m going to have to learn how to shoot videos of my driving that are better at reflecting the real conditions. If you find the video boring, well the drive wasn’t boring!!
There’s a lot of leftover mining gear all around in the Goldfield Reserve. I only took pictures of a small amount of the relics but here they are. I didn’t understand what a lot of these rusty relics were used for. There were, clearly, a few stamper mills. One can be seen in the pictures. But these were smaller and a little different from the mills that I’ve seen in California and Nevada.
The last “town” in the area was Maytown. There are some ruins left. One of the things that I found interesting is that they had well delineated streets and even had curbs in some areas. There’s a historic preservation society that has managed to keep parts of the town documented and preserved. There are a few markers that show where some of the important buildings were located. You can see that they’ve collected some of the bottles and other small items and tried to keep them protected and available for us “tourists”.
There were a few locations where these “stumps” were located in the ground. I assume that they were the footings for buildings. I need someone to invent a story about them for me!!
The unfortunate part of my story is that I’d gotten a permit to camp for two days in the Reserve. In Queensland, you have to get permission to camp in parks and reserves. It’s got to be done online in advance. Pretty cheap. Usually between 5 and 10 AUD. So I’d gotten a permit to camp for two nights. And I headed to the camping area. Well the “road” really turned to shit!! I made it for a few km and came to a really gnarly, rocky uphill. I walked part of it and decided to chicken out and turn around and head somewhere else for the night. There’s no question that the Troopy would have made it. But I was kind of tired and the temperature had been running about 32-35 all day. So I made a relatively fast run from the Palmer River Reserve out to the tarmac. I’d picked out a free campsite about 35 km down the tarmac. It is a boondocking spot along one of the creeks. When I got there, they are rebuilding the bridge over the creek and the road crew has totally destroyed access to the camping spot. Took me about 5 minutes to find a “farm stay” about 30 km further down the road. So, I went on and got in just after dark for an overnight stay along another small river. It’s a nice campground but far from my original plans.
I hated to give up and turn around. But travelling solo has some disadvantages. It’s easy to feel a little overwhelmed. If I’d had a passenger to egg me on and to spot the rock crawling I’d have gone on. It still would have been a couple of hot days. I absolutely know that I could have done it. The car is completely capable. But sometimes it’s just more comfortable to do something else.
For some unknown reason this was a really hard posting for me to write, edit, and get the photos set up. As you might be able to tell, the adventure was over a week ago. I hope that the rest are easier so stay tuned for another in an day or two.
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