Day 2 -- Charters Towers to Richmond

Gold was discovered near Towers Hill in the early 1870s by an aboriginal horse boy, resulting in a massive gold rush.  At its peak, Charters Towers was Queensland's second largest city, with 65 hotels and its own stock exchange.  The town's wealth is still evident in the stately buildings that have been preserved from that era.  In deed, the city is very heritage conscious with excellent historical displays,   walks and museums.  Today under the city centre is a maze of hundreds of kilometres of abandoned tunnels, with shafts still visible in the most unlikely places.  Mining rights to the  entire area are now held by a Chinese financed company that is looking to mine deeper than was previously viable.

I started the day on Towers Hill which provides a good outlook over the own.  Gusty chill winds made it a hurried visit.  On the road up is a seismograph station run by UQ.  As the area is solid granite, it records earth movement much  more accurately than most places, and is one of 120 interlinked stations around the world.  The hillside is littered with concrete bunkers that were used by us forces in World War 2 to store munitions.  After a wander down the main street to admire the well preserved old buildings, I visited the Miners Cottage--a museum of all sorts of memorabilia dating back to the early period of the town.  The owner was there and I had a cuppa with him as he yarned about the mining days.  He was a fund of historical knowledge.  I then visited the Northern Miner newspaper which has been printed there since the 1870s.

My  final visit was a guided tour of the old Venus Battery.  This is a rare piece of heritage.  It was the first built in 1872 to crush ore and extract gold for private diggers.  It operated until 1973.  The history and extraction process were explained in a clever holographic display.  The heat and noise in the huge corrugated iron shed can only be imagined.  Mercury and arsenic were used in the process, taking  the lives of many workmen.  Life was cheap then sadly. Greed won the day.

I left Charters Towers at noon for the four hour drive to Richmond.  The Flinders Highway is in good condition and 110kph most of the way. Not much traffic - mostly caravans of all shapes and sizes, and road trains.  It is truly "sunburnt country" with dead pastures and scruffy scrub as far as you can see.  Had lunch in Torrens Creek, once a thriving railhead with 20 pubs, 3 churches, police station and school serving 3000 people.  Today population is 20 - one pub an a caravan park.

Got to Richmond before dark.  Will explore tomorrow.

I apologise that today's photos are all over the place.  I haven't  been able to re-order them on my iPad.  You will find them here.