Be Dammed: Road to Recovery and Charters Towers

It took Team Turtle two days to recover from their massive walk through Undara Volcanic National Park, but that was OK as it was so very much worth it. Would we punish our bodies like that again, well, at that point in time no, but.....

So, off we went again - this time in a south easterly direction towards Charters Towers, a very old gold mining town 100 klms west of Townsville. Took our time getting there with an overnight stay at Greenvale the home of the Three Rivers Hotel. Slim Dusty had a big hit with a song of the same name and I had been under the impression that it was imaginary (as most song titles are) but there is an actual hotel and a very nice one at that.

Next stop, Charters Towers. Not quite in town itself but at a very nice camp spot about 20klms east of town on the might Burdekin River. A reasonably busy place but Team Turtle managed to find another good spot overlooking the river - not on the edge of the river (the grass was too high and the banks too steep) but it was still a nice outlook.

Burdekin River Road Bridge

Fortunately for us, it hadn't rained for a while as the area where we were camped as been under water on numerous occasions over the years. It as been that often that the local council has even installed a height indicator on the opposite bank - now that is an awful lot of water!

The Flood Height Indicator

As no members of Team Turtle had ever been to the area before, we set off the next morning for the usual sightseeing, touristy thing as well as some much needed shopping.

There is an actual hill (or Tor) at Charters Towers and it was where gold was first discovered. The hill is littered with old gold mineshafts as well as munition bunkers from the Second World War.

Charters Towers

Looking East From The Hill

There are some lovely old buildings in the township itself - reminders from the heydays of the gold rush period when the population was rather excessive.

The next day we went in the opposite direction to a little town called Ravenswood - another old gold mining town. All of the information that we had collected had good things to say about this place - well, this was a very good example of the truth being stretched just a little bit. There were some nice buildings but they were so dusty, two hotels which are still in the same condition as when the gold rush was on, a non-existent information centre and a very large open cut gold mine just on the edge of town.

The Open Cut Gold Mine

Within A Stone's Throw Of Town

After a nice lunch in one of the pubs, we drove a couple of klms out of town to a geological formation called The White Blow. Quite interesting as it looked just like a heap of rubble, not the solid piece of quartz that it is!

The Sign Says It All

The White Blow

From The Top

That was enough of old towns but it was a pleasant day for a drive! The next few days were just for relaxing and for a little bit of maintenance on the vehicles.