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.