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