Tyrconnell, Kingsborough and Thornborough

I hinted at what we got up to last weekend on my last post 'A Saturday Drive'.
Did you guess where we went?

The road, what is left of Thornborough, a shack.

Last weekend I got to see a very different side of the North. The side that is the reason Port Douglas and Cairns even exist. It was all about mining, mining history. So there you go, without the early mining history of North QLD maybe those wonderful, thriving, coastal tourist destinations might not have come to into being, or at least so early.

Our first stop was Tyrconnell a gold mine that was established in 1876. Gold did funny things to people in the past causing them to rush to new destinations, engulfed with gold fever and wanting to make their millions. Now what is so special about Tyconnell is that it is still home to an original working battery, the only one left from the 12 that were in the area in its heyday. It is hard to imagine that Tyconnell was once home to 10 000 people especially when now it is home to just 11.

At Tyconnell large chunks of quartz where put through the stamper battery using gravity. The stone was fed through from the top and down to the stampers where it was crushed into smaller and smaller pieces. The gold and gravel were then separated. The battery is still used for demonstrations today and you can see specks of gold dust on the table where it is separated.

Can you see the lighter, brighter specks of gold dust?

The 240+m mine shaft where quartz mined in the hope that it held gold is still intact.
Can you imagine how hard it would be to haul stone like that, mining stone underground by hand?

Tyrconnell unlike the other mines and batteries was operational right through to WWII when it was abandoned after Japanese bombers were seen flying overhead not long after the bombing of Darwin. Due to this there is also a lot of the original equipment and machinery around.In the 80s the mine was resurrected for a short time before being developed into a tourist destination. You can camp at Tyrconnell or stay in one of the cottages or just pop in for a day tour.

After exploring Tyrconnell and Mr Sparky picking up every piece of quartz he walked past to check for gold we headed off. We didn't make it very far, stopping at their dam to cook up some lunch. sausage and salad burgers.



Our next quick stop was to check out the Kingsborough cemetery. Even though I knew that it was the reality of the era and the conditions people lived in it was sad to see that most of the intact graves nestled in amongst the grass were those of very young children and adults.

Once back in the car we were off adventuring again looking for more mining finds. We saw a chimney up in the hills and went to discover but decided not to go past the 'private mining lease do not enter' sign. People are still trying to find their millions in these rocky, unforgiving hills.



We retraced our wheel tracks and headed off in a new direction stopping at Thornborough cemetery. We had passed what remained of what was a substantial town earlier. I found the cemeteries interesting but find it curious how they still hold so much emotion within them. I know that sounds weird but I guess it is that I 'feel' for those families who lost members in such harsh conditions and then you see a grave with the names of five children who all died very young and wonder at why the families stayed and continued. Something that was very interesting though was that all but one of the graves didn't have a birth date but instead had a date of death and and age, most including the months as well.

 

This was not the end of our delving into history and going back in time.

More soon.

Do you like to delve into history and jump into physical history adventures?

Where have you visited recently?

There is more on Tyrconnell here and here.

Also more on Thornborough and Kingsborough here.