Idriess and the Drums of Mer film

I joined a dozen other history buffs in shuffling our chairs about the small area at the back of the old bookstore in order to get the best advantage to hear the story about to be told by Fairlie Sandilands.  Fairlie, who has a degree in Anthropology and qualifications in Museum Curatorship, spent many years living in Townsville and was the start-up curator for the Magnetic Island museum.  Now at the age of sixty years and retired to a home at Topaz, she has looked back some forty years to when she was a nineteen year old teenager working for a film company and the adventure she was to have researching for a proposed film.

Drums of Mer book

With a screen in place and the projector set for the powerpoint show, Fairlie began her tale of a movie project that could have been one of the great Australian films but was not to be.  The talk she entitled, 'Drums of Mer Revisited' started with an over-view of the history of the Torres Straits and the culture of the islander people who call the Straits home.  Fairlie then told of how a young adventurer and prospector named Ion L. Idriess, known then as 'Jack', wandered into the Straits and came to learn much of the Islander culture.  While camping at old Somerset, Ion had the privilege to be one of the last to read the decaying journals of the Jardine family and having learnt from Rev MacFarlane of the great anthropological expedition of the 1890's, he later studied the reports of this Cambridge Expedition.  This study was the background to the writing of his 1933 novel 'Drums of Mer' which he based on the true story of the wreck of the ship 'Charles Eaton'.

Ion L. Idriess 1950

Fairlie went on to explain how she became involved with a group of film makers led by Sandy Harbutt who had just made the classic Australian movie 'Stone'.  Have been a fan of Idriess since boyhood, Sandy sought to make a feature film of 'Drums of Mer' and spoke to Idriess about his project and obtained the film rights.  He found funding near impossible to find but had obtained a little money to finance the researching of the proposed movie and sent the young Fairlie to interview Ion Idriess and up to the Torres Straits.  Fairlie spoke of her three months long expedition to Mer Island to talk about the project with the Murray islanders.  She found the people there had been so impressed with Idriess' novel that they were using it as a text book on their culture with a few even believing it was actually non-fiction.  They were quite keen to see the film made especially after they discover that the actor Mr Harry Belafonte had shown interest in starring as the lead character.

Sadly, the film could not be financed, although Sandy Harbutt still believes in the project to this day.  Fairlie ended her story telling of her time spent with Ion Idriess and how it took her many years to realize what a privilege it had been to be able to meet and talk with this truly iconic Australian.  Been a fan of Ion Idriess myself, I found great delight in this afternoon's discussion.  It also gave me a greater appreciation of the academic value of Idriess' writings.  Especially after having just re-read many of his northern Queensland books after nearly thirty-five years of history study since my first reading.  So thank you Fairlie Sandilands for sharing your experiences.

Fairlie Sandilands with her hosts and some of her audience

Back to the Palmer Goldfield

It had been a couple of years since I was last on the Palmer River and with the heat building up and this year's wet season approaching, this might be my last chance to get in for the year.  Our mining friend, Graham Byrne had given us permission to stay at his new mining camp on his lease at Ida for the weekend.  That along with the news that the road into the Palmer was been cleaned up, made this a proposition too good to let pass.  So we loaded up the vehicle and with some friends who wanted to learn how to metal-detect for gold on board, it was off for another long weekend exploring the heritage of the old River of Gold.

The camp site

It was starting to get quite late before we were able to hit the road on the Saturday morning for the long trip up to the Palmer River and the drive was rather uneventful until we reached the gravel road.  This end of the Palmer road had not yet been graded and the rear of the vehicle began to swing about the road.  Yes, a tyre had blown-out, no doubt on a sharp rock.  We found a place to pull over and found ourselves beside another vehicle and laughed as the other were also changing a tyre.  It was the Fitzgeralds who maintain the road and were out here to organize their next road building camp to finish off this last section of the year's road maintenance job.  So after changing the tyre and chatting with the Fitzgeralds, it was late in the afternoon before we reached Ida and set up our camp in the shed at Graham's mine camp.  After tea that evening, with light from torches and the full moon, it was out for a couple of hours work to familiarize our friends in the art of metal-detecting for gold on the Palmer.

The following morning we made an inspection of Graham's new mining plant.  He had just laid a concrete pad for a small crushing plant where he hopes to become the first hard-rock miner on the Palmer since the late Sam Elliott put through his last crushing at the Wild Irish Girl battery in 1959.  Later we the drove over to Maytown to show our friends the remains of the old town and on the way back we spent some time exploring the remains of the old houses and the mill sites about the old Ida town.  After lunch, we drove over to the North Palmer to give our friends a better idea of the extent of the goldfield and to show them the site of the Chinese village near German Bar and its cemetery.  That afternoon was spent searching for gold about the mining lease but found only old tin and nails and a few Devil's Dice.  We enjoyed the quiet of the bush camp that evening and many happy hours were spent talking about the gold that was found on this goldfield of old.

The old mine 'toms'

On the last day, before we pack-up to head off home, we decided to drive over to Thomson's Creek which had been worked extensively by machines some twenty or more years ago.  It was here that we found the most interesting heritage site of this trip.  After driving down the appalling piece of road off the ridge into the mined out creek area, our attention was drawn to several rows of low stumps embedded in the creek bed.  There was another set of these stumps protruding a few centimetres out of the mud just a short way down stream and we puzzled over this for a while until we noticed the remnant sand and rocky wash of an ancient river bed in the creek bank.  Then it dawned on us that what we were looking at was the tops of old mine 'toms'.  The old time miners, possibly the Chinese who had a village nearby, had found the ancient river buried two or three metres below the modern stream and had tunnelled in to get the gold-bearing wash.  In a number of places, the roof of the tunnel must have been unstable and they had shored it up with timber posts.  Then about a hundred years later, modern miners had stripped the earth away from above to expose the tops of these old mine toms.  We stood there and wondered at just how extensive might this old unrecorded mining project had been and how much gold might the 'old-timers' had recovered for their efforts.

When we returned to the camp, we found our friend sitting there with a silly grin across his face.  He had gone off at five o'clock in the morning determined to find some gold and after spending all morning working about the old lease, he had found his gold.  A tiny piece, not much to show for more than six hours of hard work in the heat but it was his first bit of gold and Palmer gold at that.  So we had all been successful this trip and after a late lunch, we packed up and hit the long road homeward and near Adam's dam we pass the Fitzgeralds again, as they were setting up their next road building camp.

The first hard-rock plant on the Palmer since 1959.

 

Forgotten Rail Bridge

The impetus for this little adventure came from the many car trips that the members of our intrepid trio had made between Malanda and Millaa Millaa over the years.  A casual glance out across the green pastures while driving along many parts of this road brings into view the faint remnant of the old railway that once wound its way through the hills on its way out to Millaa Millaa.  This last section of the Johnston River Railway was built from Tarzali to Millaa Millaa just after the First World War and opened in 1921.  It served the people of the district for more than forty years until it was closed down and torn up in 1964.  Some fifty years after this line was shut, much of the once extensive network of railways of the region are now gone and has become just a fading memory of the local old-timers who themselves are beginning to fade away.  This lost rail network has always attracted our interest and some startling news about this line drew our attention back to it.  It appears an old wooden bridge still stands intact.

The old bridge

The information on the railway bridge came from the land owner who also had an interest in the local history of the area and he was willing to show us the site.  So on a Sunday afternoon, a half-dozen local history buffs gathered at his farm to explore the Mindun section of the old Millaa Millaa railway.  We began the day with Ray giving us a run down on his farming enterprise which has grown from the original family farm into one of the largest dairy operations on the Tablelands and he showed us some concrete foundations of a small dairy that he had recently found that predated even his family's generations long association with that property.  Then we drove across to the other side of the main highway and parked on what was once the site of the Minbun railway station.  At this site there once operated a small timber mill and on the hill overlooking the community was the site of a little school which could still be identified by the grove of old pine trees that had been planted behind the school buildings.  Nothing remains now of this little village but some fading cuttings in the earth.

Minbun Falls

We then followed the foundations of the railway a little way from the station site into a thick grove of thorny Coral trees and there before us, hidden by the trees, were the remains of an old wooden railway bridge.  To get a better view, we climbed down below the bridge and to our amazement we found most of the timbers still in place although some had rotted out and were beginning to fall.  This had been one of the longest bridges on the line and had somehow been forgotten over the years.  The Coral trees had grown up around and even through the timbers to hide the bridge from view, even from the traffic driving pass on the nearby main road.  We moved to the other end of the bridge and found some of the small copper protection plates were still attached to the ends of a few of the timbers.  And on top, many of the old timber transoms that once held the steel rails were still in place, although rot was slowly eating them away.

As a history enthusiast, I was delighted to find this artifact of our past age of railways still intact.  Although I am not sure how many more years it will remain before time brings it down.  To finish the day off, our party climbed down along the creek to just down-stream from the old bridge to view another forgotten landmark, the little water fall that was once known as Jackson's Falls, named after the Jackson family who had help pioneer this property.  This was once the swimming hole and picnic spot for the local residents of Mindun but it too has been long forgotten.  In a twist to this story, I found myself sitting opposite the elderly Mr George Jackson at a recent historical society dinner.  He knew about the bridge and had spent much time at the falls when a young lad and he was pleased to learn that the old Minbun railway bridge was still safe.  I wonder how many more artifacts of this railway was still out there to be found.

Old Minbun village site                                 The bridge in the old days

Down Gunnawarra to Kirrama

I recently joined almost thirty fellow history buff friends with a dozen vehicles in front of the little school at Mount Garnet to begin a trip down the Gunnawarra Road to the Kirrama Range and out through the Kennedy Valley.  After a short discussion on the plans for the day, our line of cars headed out to the first heritage site of the trip which was the historic Mount Garnet Racecourse and Rodeo Grounds.  After a quick drive about the grounds and a short lesson on its history from one of the members of the party, our small convoy turned off the highway to drive down the Gunnawarra road.  I was quite surprised at how many small properties have been established at this end of the road and also just how far down the bitumen extends.  Our first stop of this trip was the historic Gunnawarra Station homestead.  Here we were met by the Atkinsons who took the time to show us about their heritage listed buildings and the little family cemetery.  They gave us a run-down on the drought conditions affecting the station and then gave our group a preview of the new two volume Atkinson family history written by local historian Margaret Gilmore which is just hot off the printing press.

Old Gunnawarra Station building

Then it was back on the road which was now gravel but in quite a good condition so we made good time passing many cattle stations with familiar names such as Tirrabella and Glen Ruth.  The next stop on this little adventure was at the historic Cashmere Crossing where morning tea was had.  While here, the lonely little cemetery was viewed as was the nearby site of the original Cashmere Station homestead.  The next section of the trip was the roughest with some steep climbs in and out of gullies before entering the Girringun National Park where we stopped to view the magnificent Blencoe Falls and gorge.  This was the first time I had ever been into this amazing waterfall and I was astonished that the road down through this location had not yet been promoted as a major tourist route.  Our party even had several conventional vehicles which made the trip with just a little care through the rough section.

Cashmere Crossing

Then we drove down to the camping area below the falls for a late picnic lunch beside the creek.  It was here that we left a number of our group who had decided to make this expedition into a camping trip.  So with a little light rain coming down, the rest of the vehicles headed down to the Kirrama Range area where a stop was made at the Society Flats boardwalk to wander around the rainforest path.  I was surprised to see the huge areas of young karri pine regrowth in the valleys we passed.  Having recently read Ed Healy's book on the vast amount of timber that had come out of this district, I now felt that I had a better idea of the extent of that timber-getting enterprise of olden days.  Many members of our party were also surprised to see the Shire boundary signs down here showing just how far south the Tableland Regional Council extends.

The last section of this expedition was down the Kirrama Range Road where several short stops were made at the lookouts along the way before our finale stop in the Kennedy Valley where members of our group said their goodbyes then made their own way back up the coast to home.  What a trip!  With many getting home after dark, it was a long twelve hour day but those who joined in the excursion were pleased with the adventure, as like me, many were travelling through country they had never seen before.  I can see this road trip becoming popular in the future.    

              Shire boundary signs                                Lunch beside the creek                                 The magnificent Blencoe Falls    

Zillmanton Village Found

At last!  After several expeditions over the years, we believe we may have finally found the site of the little village that long ago served the mines of Zillmanton.  Zillmanton deserves better than a near-forgotten footnote in the local history records as it was the first township on the Chillagoe Mineral Field and for a short time was the only settlement out beyond Koorboora.  An official town site was not surveyed until near the closure of mining so it was never accurately marked on any of the older maps or plans which made finding the site rather difficult.  And as the mines closed permanently at the end of 1911 and the town was pretty much gone by 1914, all those who may have known the pioneering township would have past from this world many decades ago and sadly taking that information with them.

Looking down on the site

While recently enjoying a lazy long weekend at Chillagoe, our intrepid trio of Duncan, Robert and myself decided to give it another try and after reviewing all the areas where we had searched in the past and failed to find the site, we chose this time to explore well past the mine sites.  So one morning, before the heat of the day got too much and with a couple of young 'whipper-snapper' in tow, we headed out to Zillmanton for yet one more try.  It shouldn't have been this hard to find as the place had the services of a proper town with a couple of bush hotels and a number of boarding houses along with a couple of shops and for a few years towards the end, a small school.  But were was it all?  We knew it was suppose to be close to the railway line and perviously we had searched the areas about the mine site, then an 'old timer' told us that he thought the town site was further out along the rail line.  So we looked out on the Mungana side which made sense to us as there was a water source in that direction.  But we didn't find anything out there so we decided this time to look in the opposite direction as we later found a copy of a Mines Department plan which showed the site of the school reserve out there.

The hidden stumps

We drove off the road where it crossed the now disused railway line and followed a track for a short way before parking in the shade of a large tree.  Our party then wandered down the railway line, back in the direction of Chillagoe and pass the old mines and through the areas we had searched in the past.  On our right was a line of low hills behind which we could hear the traffic passing by so we were still reasonablely close to the main road.  Towards the end of the hills, the country opened out onto a flat area which looked promising and we walked across to investigate and to our delight we started to come across old metal barrel rims and pieces of broken glass.  To get a better view of the area, I climbed up the side of the nearby hill and onto a small rock outcrop which was shaded by a old tree and there I found dozens of old green beer bottles along with a sortment of whisky bottles.  It seem too high on the hill slope to be a dump site and the lack of old tin cans there, suggested that men from nearby might have climbed to this place to enjoy a drink during their spare time.

Soon after coming down from the hill, one of the youngsters pointed out a row of old wooden stumps half hidden in the long grass.  We had found our first building site.  The front of the site was facing the rail line and had been built up with rock and several rows of old floor stumps were still in place giving us an idea of the dimensions of the structure.  Shards of broken crockery found about the site suggested this was a residential dwelling, maybe one of the boarding houses which provided accommodation for the miners.  With the long grass making the search difficult and the midday heat starting to take its toll, we decided to call it a day and headed back towards the car happy with the knowledge that we had found the likely area where the village once stood.  Our little party resolved to return later in the year, after the annual bush fires have cleaned up the long grass, to better investigate this area.  But for now, it was off to cool down with a cold drink and a splash in Chillagoe Creek.

The mines of Zillmanton                                                                  The mine site today

Day at the Museum

The long awaited day had arrived.  The new Australian Armour and Artillery Museum in Cairns was having its Opening Day event and I was heading down to check it out.  I have always had some interest in military history, particularly that which involve North Queensland and my own family.  The fact that someone was building a big military museum at Caravonica to house the largest collection of armoured vihicles and artillery pieces in the Southern Hemisphere had come as a bit of a surprise.  For many months I had been following, on their Facebook page, the development of the buildings and the collection and could hardly believe the extent and importance of the pieces that were to be put on display.  So it was with some excitement that I drove down to Cairns to spend a day at the new museum.

A bit of a surprise

The first sight of this new museum complex showed that these folk were damn serious about their passion for military history and were here to stay.  Although I had arrived at about 10.00am, the car park was already full and I had to park my car over in the Tjapukai Cultural Park and walk across to the museum.  Along the front of the building there were a number of stalls giving the event a bit of a festive look.  The Australian Military Forces had set up a recruitment display and the local military vehicle enthusiasts had brought in some of their jeeps and there were also some food stalls.  I walked up the steps and found a queue from the counter back out to the front doors.  It took a little while to get my ticket and as I entered I was surprised by what appeared to be a German SS Officer in full dress uniform walking pass carrying a maschinepistole sub-machine gun.  Yes, it looked like some members of the Townsville based North Queensland Historical Re-enactment Society had come up to join in the opening celebrations.  I strolled past the World War Two Japanese soldier in combat dress and entered the collection.  Oh Wow!

Part of the collection

The huge building was made up of two display areas with the larger front shed been filled with the artillery pieces and the more historic tanks.  I wandered about the dozens of old cannons, reading the excellently presented information panels which gave a good run down of the history and statistics of each piece.  I must admit that my favorite was the fine specimen of the infamous German 88 millimetre gun.  At the end of the building was probably the most important piece in the armored collection, a fine example of an Australian Sentinel tank.  One of only four left in existence from only fifty-six that were ever built.  It looked like it would have been the equal to any medium tank that was been built at that time.  Oh what could have been!  Soon after my encounter with the Sentinel, a rumble from my stomach told me that it was well past lunch time and as the entry ticket acted as an all day pass, I wandered outside to one of the food stalls.  A small eatery inside the complex might be something for the future, maybe combined in with the front counter.

Returning to the collection after I had satisfied my hunger, I found an old friend viewing the guns, Stephen Fowler.  Steve is the Officer in charge of one of the local Air Cadets units and is also the president of the Cairns Historical Society and a prominent local military history enthusiast.  He had been invited to the Official Opening held the previous evening and he gave me a rundown on the event.  He also pointed out that beneath the floor of the main building was a room with a fifty metre long shooting range and out the back of the museum was a large workshop where the vehicles could be serviced and maintained.  After chatting with Steve, I wandered over to the smaller wing of the complex where some of the more modern military vehicles were on display.  As I finished up my visit, I realized I had spent four hours at the museum, so I certainly got my money worth.  I think this centre, along with Beck's military museum and the War Birds aviation museum at Mareeba and a possible military museum at the old Rocky Creek igloo will create a wonderful circuit for those interested in our military heritage.  Mr Rob Lowden and his team have certainly put together something special here and I wish them well for the future.  

The new museum complex 

Return to the Palmer River

It had only been a few months since our last trip up to the old Palmer River Goldfield but the echoes of its history was calling and as the road in was so good, another expedition was organized.  Once again, on a recent Friday afternoon and in a vehicle loaded with camping gear, we headed off for another four nights camping under the stars where the gold diggers of old chased the colours.  But this time, as we passed Biboohra, we made a stop at Jack Skinner's home to chat about old sites of interest that he had found over the many years that he had spent mining for gold on that field.  It was getting late when we left Jack's place and with a map covered with directions to locations to explore, we hit the road again.  Our goal for the night was Budda's old tin washing plant site where we were to spend the night.  We found our previous camp site with little difficulty and discovered the pile of firewood we left on our last trip still lying beside the fireplace.  This adventure was off to a splendid start.

Busy day in Maytown

The next morning, we drove into the Palmer Crossing where we met up with a friend from Chillagoe.  Wayne had travelled up to the Palmer through Palmerville and together we drove into Maytown to meet up with our old mining friend, Graham Burns of Herberton who was following an old dream to try mining for gold on the Palmer.  He was showing his family the goldfield and we all spent the rest of the morning exploring the ruins of Maytown together.  Graham had teamed up with a local miner Danny who owned Alf Munn's old shack site which was the only freehold block on the Palmer.  That afternoon we spent over at the Upper Gregory Creek area where we prospect with our metal-detectors in the area above the site of our previous trips camp on Gregory Beach.  Sadly, we found very little.  With dark coming on, we availed ourselves of Danny's hospitality and camped on the lawn of his home at Ida.  While sitting about Danny's fire pit that evening, he gave us the inside story of the recent cold-blooded murder committed on the Palmer from his point of view as a witness to the event.  A chilling account of what can happen when the authorities don't move to pull up a pair of gun totting psychos.

Pub site at German Bar

The following morning, we followed Jack's advice and checked out the area about the old Native Police Camp near Maytown.  Just below the butcher's old cattle yards, Duncan found a cluster of old Chinese artifacts which appears to have been hidden there in the old days.  How they came to be here would have been a great tale.  After lunch, we drove over to German Bar and found the site of the small village which was perched high on the bank of the North Palmer River overlooking the Chinese township where we camped on our previous trip.  Here, beside the road to Laura, we found several terraces that had been cut into the slope for buildings.  One of which was obviously a hotel site as we found, laying in the gully behind the site, a whole bank of broken green glass from many hundreds of old gin bottles.  Even after nearly one hundred and forty years since the gold rush days, there are still a lot of old artifacts laying about this site.  Coming down from the village site, we made a quick visit to Binnie's original gold mill site before heading back to Danny's place where we spent the evening about his fire pit in the company of a number of visiting mining men, talking of metals, mines and mining men.  An echo of what would have once been commonplace about these fields.

Our camp at Danny's

We woke the next morning to the sight of a flat tyre on the vehicle, it appears we must have hit an echidna that previous evening and had filled the tyre with a dozen spines.  That's one buggered tyre; like our previous trip.  Luckily, Duncan always carries two spare tyres on these trips.  After changing the wheel, we headed out to Milkmans Flat to meet the folk there who have built a wonderful home on the bank of the North Palmer River.  They have set up a small museum to display the many artifacts that they have collected over the years they had spent mining in the area.  I had never seen so many old case gin bottles in one place and Duncan was delighted with the range of old Chinese opium tins that these folk had found.  After spending the morning talking history, we had lunch under the big shade trees behind their bush house that overlook a long stretch of the river.  What a place to live, although it might be a bit of a worry in flood time.  On the way back to the camp at Danny's place, we called into some of the old time mining sites and spent the afternoon exploring the relics left from those olden-days.

It might sound a bit decadent, camping under a tree on a front lawn with a nice hot shower at the end of each day but it sure made for a comfortable expedition.  We spent that last evening sitting about the fire pit with Danny and Graham and talking about gold and Danny's plans for a little heritage business venture here at his Palmer hideaway.  We wish him well with his efforts.  The next morning saw us packing up and heading off homeward in the direction of Chillagoe.  I had never been down the Palmerville to Chillagoe road before so this was all new country for me and very interesting.  To begin the day, we called into the old Alexandra mine before heading down to Palmerville and on to Mount Mulgrave Station with a stop at the Mitchell River for lunch.  This road was in quite good condition and we made good time, hitting the main road near Wrotham Park Station homestead but still some hour or so drive west of Chillagoe.  This was now familiar country and afternoon tea was taken at Wayne's home in Chillagoe.  It was dark by the time we reached home, sore and weary and with heads full of thoughts of the Palmer's golden days.

Last mill built at Ida                                                              The Ida mine in 1912             

Following the Palmer Chinese

A general interest in the pioneering Chinese of the North and a particular interest in the local opium trade of the olden days was the impetus for a long weekend trip up to the Palmer River Goldfield; that fabled 'River of Gold'.  The main aim of this expedition was a quest to find old opium tins in order to discover just where the drug had been imported from and which companies were involved in the trade.  This information could be obtained from the 'chops' embossed into the lids of the tins like labels.  So on a recent Friday afternoon, in a vehicle heavily loaded with camping gear, the intrepid trio of Duncan, Robert and myself headed out of town for the long drive up towards Cooktown and then down the modern Maytown road in the dark to find a camp site.

Chinese cooking ovens

As our first exploration area was to be the Cannibal Creek tin field, we found a reasonable camp site at Budda's old alluvial tin washing plant where we made a quick camp and threw our swags down about a campfire.  The mosquitoes coming up from the still water of the plant's old dam gave us a hard time during the night but we were up early and raring to go.  We were not far from the site of the Chinese cooking ovens on the banks of Granite Creek which the Palmer River Historic Preservation Society had covered with small roofs.  A lot of tin with gold was mined here by both Chinese and European diggers although many of the old sites about here were destroyed by the tin mining of modern times.  We knew that many artifacts had been found about these ovens, so we crossed the creek and set to work with our metal-detectors which were soon howling.  The large number of rusty nails we unearthed here hinted that once a large complex of buildings had sat at this site and although this area would have been well scoured by artifact seekers over the years, we still managed to find a number of old Chinese coins and parts of several opium tins.  After a few hours of work, we had not found what we were seeking and decided to head back down the road a short way to have lunch at the Aboriginal rock art site.

Camp on Gregory beach

With lunch done and a short hike about the area in search of other art sites, we drove down to the nearby airstrip where we tried to locate the site of Ah Fat's market garden but we must have missed the correct track as we couldn't find any area that resembled a Chinese garden.  We had a quick look over the old village and mill site of Fountainville then continued on to the old Chinese market garden at Dog Leg Creek and spent some time exploring this site.  Our goal for the afternoon was Gregory Beach where we wanted to set up camp.  After finding the right track, we then travelled less that a hundred metres from the turn-off before there came the sicking sound of a tyre being staked.  They weren't really the right tryes for this sort of bush work but we made a quick change and then a very careful drive down to the banks of the Palmer River where we set up camp at the 'beach'.

Chinese artifacts

The next morning, after a Sunday morning sleep-in, we put together our day-packs and spent several hours hiking up along Gregory Creek looking for gold and any sign of the Chinese camps that must have been somewhere in that area.  We reached the site of a modern times gold washing plant were we had lunch on the bank of the old dam.  Having found very little sign of the Chinese miners and even less gold, we worked our way back to the river where we spent some time breaking up a slate bar to gain a sample of gold.  Later that afternoon, Duncan and Robert went off again to try to find the Chinese camp while I had a lazy time attending the campfire and reading.  With dark coming on, I guessed that the guys must have found something of interest which was confirmed when they staggered into the camp all excited as they had found the Chinese village site and it was just a couple of hundred metres up-stream from our camp.  Their excitement got the better of them and after dinner, with torches and metal-detectors in hand, it was back over to the settement site for a couple of hours of work in the dark.  Oh what enthusiasm!

The Comet mill

We were up early the next morning and after breakfast were back over to the site of the old Chinese village.  Numerous earthen platforms of hut sites were identified and many artifacts were found including several items related to the opium habit which was what we had come to find.  At the far end of the habitation area, we found a small creek which contained some fine examples of the stone pitching that the Chinese miners were famous for.  I dug out a load of dirt from below some large rocks along this creek but not a single colour of gold was found in the pan when I washed it back at the camp.  The efficiency of those Chinese miners of old is very impressive.  After morning tea, we broke camp and drove over to the tourist road about the old under-ground mines and mill sites.  I was quite impressed with the work of the members of the old Palmer River Historic Preservation Society in this area, especially at the Comet Mill where the old boiler and engine had been re-housed in a replica building.  This was just an example of what that Society could have accomplished if they had been able to continue with their efforts.  We visited several other old mine sites along this road before heading off to the North Palmer River to seek out another well known Chinese mining site.

Chinese cemetery

Our goal was the Chinese cemetery on the North Palmer that the Preservation Society had cleaned up and fenced back in the 1980's.  With the help of the road signs, we found the cemetery without too much trouble and after checking it out, we drove passed it and down the track to the river where it was obvious that many people had made their camps in the past.  After setting up camp, we explored the area and found we had almost pitched our tents on top of several Chinese graves.  There must be so many of them strewn about this remote country.  That evening we wandered along the river bank for a short distance and found the Chinese habitation area which was located directly below the cemetery.  The next morning, after breakfast, we spent several hours searching this area and found what appears to have been a public house site as the area was covered with the broken green glass of numerous cheap whisky bottles.  It was interesting to note how the hut sites were all clustered together in one small group on the edge of the river.  No doubt they were huddled there for protection.  After we broke camp and drove back up passed the little cemetery, I thought of how sad it was for those occupying the dozens of graves there.  Forgotten men lying in a strange land, in an isolated and lonely resting place and now long beyond memory of loved ones back in their homeland so far away.

What we were seeking

To finish the expedition off, we drove around to old Maytown and had morning tea sitting in the shade of a tree, growing now in what was once the main street of the capital town of this famous goldfield.  We visited the site of the old Chinese temple, the 'joss house' which once looked out from the high bank of the Palmer River and then spent some time looking about the site of the old Chinese owned shops that had lined the street of the old town.  I thought back to the first time I visited this goldfield, way back in 1980 and I came to the conclusion that we were really about thirty years too late for this sort of mission, as so many of the sites here had been scoured out over the years by artifact seekers and that there was little left to discover now.

With midday coming on, we drove back to the Palmer Crossing and had lunch before beginning the long journey back out to the Cooktown road and then homewards.  The trip had been somewhat of a success as we had found three different kinds of opium tins at the sites we had explored.  I was quite impressed with the condition of the road which was so good one could almost drive a conventional motor vehicle in with a little care on the creek crossings.  And as the recent cyclone had dump some good rain over the district, all the creeks had water flowing in them and the country was beautifully green and freash.  As we drove out, we found ourselves already planning for our next visit to the River of Gold.  What a wonderful trip it had been.

Main street of Maytown in the old days                                          The street today 

   

Echo of a Chinese Temple

A couple of years ago, I came across a short newspaper article from a 1932 paper which described the last days of the old Chinese Temple at Herberton.  The piece told how the Chinese population of the area had diminished until at last, the Celestials had practically all departed but for an old feeble few who were left to meet the rates on the temple.  As the rates were accumulating and the be-tinselled roof of this 'Joss house' was all but collapsing under this added burden, action was taken under the Local Authorities Act and the worshipping place of the Sons of Heaven was sold by tender.  (What the hell was the Herberton Shire Council doing charging rates on a place of worship?)  The buildings were bought by Messrs Day and Ross for 20 pounds and were carted off to make a tobacco curing shed and the temple furniture, which included the two profusely ornamented Josses was also sold and realized a pitiful sum when their lustrous history was considered.  For nearly fifty years those ornaments had presided over a host of worshippers and were purchased by a Presbyterian clergyman, Rev. Porter Young and were sent off to spend their sad unofficial existence in a British museum.

Characters from above the door

I had not even known that there had been a proper Chinese temple in Herberton and a discussion with local Herberton historian, Mr Ivan Searton revealed a desperate lack of information on this subject.  He could not even find a photo of the temple and as it was demolished back in 1932, knowledge of the temple had faded from living memory long ago.  Ivan discovered that the temple had stood on a allotment which is now owned by Artie and Pat Day and my mate Duncan had learnt that the buildings had been taken out to Watsonville to an old tobacco farm which was now owned by an old friend, Craig Terrens.  On the off chance that something might remain of the buildings, Duncan made a quick visit and found the foundations of the tobacco shed still in existence and to his amazement, embedded into the concrete, were Chinese characters.  They had used the panels from the front of the temple as formwork for the concrete walls.  In an effort to record this writing, the intrepid trio of Duncan, Robert and myself, along with our friend Xiao Hu (Frank), were soon off on a little archaeological expedition, although no doubt, our techniques would have sent shutters of dismay through the members of Time Team.

Outlining the characters

After driving out to Craig's place, we made a quick review of the site and concluded that those who built the tobacco shed had used the panel from above the temple door and another from beside the door in the formwork.  Both had been used several times, once during the construction of the front half of the foundations and again on the back half.  We hoped this duplication would help with the interpretation of the calligraphy, as after nearly eighty years, the writing was badly worn and it was difficult to determine the precise shape of the individual characters.  After painstakingly outlining each character the best we could with white chalk to assist with the examination, we were able to gain some half decent photographic images which we will be able to reverse in order to get an analysis of the writing.  Our companion on this outing was young 'Frank' (as he likes to be called) who had a working knowledge of the Chinese language, as both of his parents were from southern China.  He concluded that the script was in the old traditional language which he had little understanding, although he could translate several of the characters.

A small structure had been built beside the tobacco barn and the floor stumps were still in place.  Robert gave the whole site a good going over with his metal-detector in the hope that something of the old temple might have been brought out and had survived, but too no avail.  Meanwhile, Duncan attempted to gain plaster casts of some of the writing but this was not very successful and Frank and I took measurements of the foundations and then cut away trees and shrubs that endangered the structure.  Photographic images of the characters were later sent to another friend of Chinese descent, Kwan Chan who hails from Hong Kong where a more tradition script is still used.  Preliminary indications are that this was the original Hou Wang Temple of the district with the Atherton Hou Wang Temple been built some twenty years later after the decline of the Herberton Chinese community and the rise of the Atherton Chinatown as the main centre for the local Chinese folk.  This had been a grand exercise and the story of this lost temple was presented at the 2014 CHINAinc conference in Cairns.  The search for information and photos of this now forgotten temple and community continues.

The old shed foundations                                                     The only known photo of the old tobacco sheds

Tumoulin Racetrack Revisited

It had been raining off and on all week and a little 'cabin fever' was starting to set in.  A decision was made to head out towards the west to escape the damp weather and an old idea was brought up.  Why not go out to Tumoulin and find the remains of the old race course?  After the First World War, the local community at Tumoulin had pooled their resources and built a racecourse with a grandstand on a reserve behind the town.  During the Second World War, race meetings were attended by locals along with up to five thousand soldiers at a time who were stationed in the district.  But by the 1950's the town had declined and the race meetings were discontinued and the high grandstand was eaten out by white ants and dismantled.  As for the circular track, Google Earth images show that it remains to this day and it was hoped that something might remain of the old infrastructure.

The track through the trees

With a couple of metal-detectors and a file of old photographs in hand, the intrepid trio of Duncan, Robert and myself, along with our old friend John, was off on another Sunday excursion.  With so many soldiers attending the race days, we hoped that some interesting items might be turned up, as long as the grass was not too high and thick.  But no, we could not be that lucky.  On arrival, we found that the reserve was quite over-grown but the circular track was still very well defined and it would only take a few hours of work with a tractor and slasher to clear the grass to run horses on the course again.  We started to walk around the track in an effort to locate the general area of the grandstands and stalls but the first thing we found was a very large black snake that didn't like the look of us and disappeared into the long grass.  A rather ominous start to our quest.  The metal-detectors soon began to howl and several horse shoes were dug from the wet red dirt.  But what else would you expect to find on an old racecourse!  We then found a few rickety old wooden posts and after a walk right around the track, there was little else to discover.

The old posts

After studying the old photos, we determined that the stands and stalls were in the vicinity of the old posts and we returned to that site.  We came to the conclusion that the clusters of posts most probably marked the finish line and from that we were able to work out where the grandstand must have stood.  Soon we were detecting numerous old rusty nails, which no doubt came from the demolished building.  But no evidence could be found of the rails that once marked the side of the track as were shown in the old photos and nothing of the smaller stand built by the Army could be found.  The area behind the site of the grandstand, where the bar and food stalls would have been positioned, was so over-grown that we gave up any hope of been able to use the metal-detectors there.

With more rain threating to wash our expedition out and the wet red soil making things defficult for the metal-detectors, we decided to end our efforts for the day and head for home.  We resolved to wait until a bush fire passed through the reserve to clean in up before we made another attempt to explore this old site.  I was quite amazed at how quickly the landscape can alter back to a more natural state, leaving little trace behind of its former tenants.  On the way home, we called into the old Herberton racecourse site but could find no trace of that old historic track what-so-ever.  Maybe we were looking in the wrong place!  I will leave that for another trip.

Google Earth view                                                A race day at the old track

Looking for lost Closhey

While driving home from Cairns recently, it was noted that the annual bushfires had passed through the area about Davis Creek and this brought up the notion to look for any remnant of the long lost village of the Closhey River goldfield.  The intrepid trio decided to set a Sunday to made a little expedition down to search for relics of this short lived community.  Duncan had earlier discovered that very little had been written about this township but still managed to find a short paper on the subject published in the journal of the Australian Mining History Association but little else could be found.  I had always been interested in finding the lost grave of the first burial on this small goldfield, that of the respected mining man Mr William Hooley who died there in 1895.  And Robert, he needed no excuse to get out and fire up his metal-detector, so on a bright and sunny Sunday morning, it was off to seek out the old gold mining town of the Closhey.

Row of slabs

We drove down towards Kuranda and turned off the main road just pass Goldmine Creek.  From the journal article we had learnt that the Main Roads had used the area as a depot back in the 1960's when they had rebuilt the road between Mareeba and Kuranda but we hoped something might remain of the old village which in 1894 consisted of Sandiland's little bush hotel, a couple of shops (one owned by Hooley) and no doubt, an assortment of miner's huts and shacks.  A quick look over the bare burnt off site brought on a feeling of disappointment as it was apparent that the area of the village of Closhey was either under the new highway or had been bulldozed to make way for the Main Roads depot.  We soon found a neat row of small concrete slabs which was most probably the site of a number of road workers accommodation blocks.  All that we could find after an hour or so of searching for the old village was a few shards of old green beer bottle that might have come from the gold mining days, and little else.  We had better luck with the old gold battery site.

Bank of tailings

The mill of five stamps was erected in 1894 but only worked for a few years and we hoped something of it would remain.  We were to be pleasantly surprised with what we found.  After our fruitless search of the town site, we dropped over the bank and walked along the edge of Davis Creek looking up for any remnants of the battery.  Back towards Goldmine Creek we came upon a large bank of fine quartz sand, part of which must have been washed away over the years by floods coming down Davis Creek.  This was obviously the tailings from an old battery.  Looking up from the tailings, we could see where a mill site had been cut into the bank.  We quickly climbed up and found the remains of the five-head stamper battery that had been brought down from the Palmer Goldfield to crush the local ore.  There were still a couple of old shed posts in place as well as a couple of concrete foundations blocks for the mill machinery and a little scrap metal lying about.  A small terrace had been cut into the bank on the southern side of the mill, no doubt for a workshop.  This was a lot more that we though we would find considering the mill was purchased and removed back in 1898 by a Bowen syndicate.

Then in hope of finding some old miners hut sites or the site of William Hooley's grave, we crossed Davis Creek and climbed into a small valley where we soon found an old habitation site.  Robert gave the vicinity a good going over with his metal-detector while the rest of us scoured the site for any relics.  A good assortment of household residue was found showing that this was definitely a home from the gold mining days.  The small gully that drained through this valley had the appearance of a creek that had been worked out for alluvial gold.  A decision was made to return to this creek during some wet season with prospecting-dishes to test this theory.  A good search of the rest of the valley failed to show any further signs of habitation or any evidence of Hooley's grave which was supposed to be sited close to the village.  Another trip to this area for a wider search might be needed but for the time been, this little expedition had come to an end and we called into the Emerald Creek Ice Creamery on the way home where we had a late lunch of fresh ice cream followed with an iced coffee to end all iced coffees.

Site of the Closhey township                                  The old battery site 

Search for Sorensen's Inn

A discussion held long ago with Mrs Betty Stone put a notion into the back of our minds to one day seek out the site of her great grand-parent's old wayside hotel.  A few years back, Betty instigated a project to place a plaque beside the road between Mareeba and Mount Molloy to commemorate the life and works of Gabriel and Doretta Sorensen who kept a road side shanty hotel and staging house for those travelling between Port Douglas and the mineral fields.  The couple had met on the Hodgkinson goldfield and were married at Kingsborough in 1878.  A few years later, with two small children in tow, they opened their shanty style Public house, known as the Ten-mile, at the base of a small hillock  near the Big Mitchell River and not far from Carr Creek.  They ran the wayside hotel for about twelve years and closed it after the railway was completed to Mareeba in 1893 taking much of the traffic off the road.  Four more children were born to the couple while they were at the hotel and one of their children was Betty's grand-mother.

The annual bushfires had pass through the area and the district had seen some early storms that had greened the place to a park-like state.  So, with a lazy Sunday without any prior plans, the intrepid trio of Duncan, Robert and myself, decided to head down to Mount Molloy to seek out the site of the old pub.  After a phone call to our old friend Betty for final directions, it was off on another little adventure with the first stop being the plaque attached to a rock beside the road.  We then drove slowly along the road looking closely at the small hills before choosing to start our search at a hill that was so small we almost dismissed it.  Our choice turned out to be very fortuitous as we were to walk straight to the site.

As soon as we stepped out of the vehicle, we liked the look of our selection and the spirits of the ancestors, cunningly disguised as March flies, swarmed to greet us.  Thank goodness for the Aerogard!  Within a hundred metres we came upon the first sign of a structure, being a slab of old concrete but certainly not old enough to be the site we were looking for.  A little further on around the hill, we came upon several rows of small concrete slabs and it soon became apparent that a Main Roads camp and depot had been built here nearly fifty years ago when the new bitumen road was constructed down to Mount Molloy.  A sense of disappointment came over us as we realized that the old hotel site may have been bulldozed if this was the correct area.  This feeling quickly became a certainty when we came across the remains of a very old rubbish heap.  The large number of pieces of old green beer bottle and crockery made it obvious that some structure had occupied this site back in colonial times.  The Main Road dozer had cut right through the rubbish heap and where the little hotel would have been positioned, now sat a row of old concrete slabs of small accommodation blocks.  All remains of the hotel would have been pushed away long ago.

We searched through the rubbish and then the general area but could find no other evidence of the hotel other then the small lagoon that had supplied its water and the nearby course of the old road that would have once brought the travellers past the front of Sorensen's old wayside Public house.  Looking over the area from the site of the shanty pub across to the old road and down to the small lagoon, it was obvious that we would have no hope of finding any remains of the grave of Sorensen's eldest child, Mary Drucilla Sorensen who died there of diphtheria at eight years of age in February 1888 and was buried in an unmarked grave not far from the house.  Although unhappy in that we could find little of the wayside hotel, it was a great day out exploring our heritage and to celebrate, we call into the Emerald Creek Ice Creamery where we blew our diets with a calorie-laden ice cream and an iced coffee to die for.

Site of the Ten-mile public house

Dora Creek Dray Road Expedition

A message came through from a colleague down at the Douglas Shire Historical Society, Mr Noel Weare who was concerned about the recent damage that had been done to the old Port Douglas to Thornborough road.  He was worried that the old stone pitching on the Granite Gap (also known as the Dora Pass) section at the end of the Hann Tableland had not been correctly recorded.  As he had never documented that piece of the old road and he thought he was beginning to get a little long-in-the-tooth for climbing into the mountains, he thought we might like to organize an expedition to check the condition of the road and record the old stone pitching.  Duncan didn't need to be asked twice, especial as he wanted a challenge to put his new four wheel drive vehicle through.  So after a quick ring about, a car load of history buffs was heading down to Mount Molloy to meet up with Noel and friends coming up from the coast.  Soon the team of seven historians were on the road out to Fonthill Station.

The intrepid adventures

It was sad to see the condition of old Fonthill homestead.  It appears to have been many years since any permanent resident had occupied the homestead and the older building was looking very derelict. Fortunately, the old road had been gazetted and was still recognized as a public thoroughfare and is also a part of the National Horse Trial so we were able to drive through the station and across towards Dora Creek where the old road turned up into the hills at the end of the Hann Tableland.  For those of us who had never travelled into this area before, a real shock was install as we crossed into Southedge Station.  We broke out of the forest country of Forthill into the huge valley plains that the developer George Quaid had cleared with a team of large bulldozers back in the 1980's when he built his dam.  The Google Earth imagines just don't capture the full scale of this enterprise.  One can not use hectares to describe the clearance, you have to use square kilometres, so vast is the area.  I suspect that very few people realize the extent of these cleared valleys, hidden behind the hills on the other side of Lake Mitchell.

We made a stop at a small isolated hillock beside the track and climbed it to get a view of the landscape.  The bulldozers had destroyed all trace of the gazetted road and no effort had been made to restore the pathway, so we hoped the landowners would not be upset as we followed the track towards Dora Creek.  Somewhere nearby was the supposed site of the Round Hill aboriginal 'dispersal' but little was recorded of the event.  We continued our journey and turn into the Dora Creek valley and up pass a half-dozen freehold farming blocks near the site of McDonald's old farmstead and wayside shanty hotel.  The track quickly deteriorated as we climbed up towards the Gap.  The lighter vehicle soon became stuck on a particularly steep pinch which showed the folly of trying to put a dray road through the Granite Gap.  Little wonder this road was only used as a pack-track for the horse teams while the heavy drays went the long way around the Hann Tableland to get to the Hodgkinson goldfield.

Only about a hundred metres from the stuck vehicle, we came across the first piece of stone pitching and a little further on was the most impressive segment of the stone work.  A true example of this fine
old craft which has weathered the past one hundred and thirty-five years remarkable well.  After photographing the stone work, we wandered on up the road towards the Gap which turned out to be further than it looked.  Duncan and Jack continued on to the top while the rest of the party had a break and discussed the history of the road and the possibility of having this section heritage listed.  Then it was back down to have some fun getting the stuck vehicle off the steep pinch.  On the way back out, we startled one of the occupiers of the farming blocks who was concerned as he had begun to burn off without realizing we were behind him.  After a late lunch at the site of McDonald's old establishment, we then drove back out of the area, crossing the cleared valley to hit the main road beside the little bridge over Oakey Creek where we parted company with Noel and headed for home.  The end of an interesting day's adventure out exploring our local heritage.  

Climbing the old road up towards the gap.                                                         Some of the old stone pitching.