The gold mining past of Charters Towers can be seen everywhere in and around this town, from the lavish old buildings dotted along the crooked streets to the old gold mines and poppet heads in the surrounding areas. Charters Towers had one of the first regional stock exchanges in Australia and the building is a grand structure in the centre of town.
A large hill overlooking the town shows the scars of old gold mines, a pyrite works and World War II bunkers.
From Charters Towers we drove to Ravenswood about 80km southeast. Ravenswood was once a thriving gold mining town but when mining became too difficult using the old methods the town became a virtual ghost town in the late 1900’s. Modern mining companies have re-commenced mining and the town is being revived as an historic tourist town. Many of the old buildings are still in good condition and the history is displayed on signs around the streets.
White Blow, on the outskirts of Ravenswood, is a huge quartz rock rising majestically from the ground. It is very unusual as quartz is usually found as veins not large lumps. As we returned to Charters Towers we stopped at the Macrossan Bridge which spans the Burdekin River and saw the flood level sign post. The highest recorded level was 21.79 metres in 1946.
From Charters Towers we followed the Gregory Developmental Road to our lunch stop at Belyando Crossing, a roadhouse with expensive fuel and a motel/caravan park. After lunch we continued southwards to Clermont for one night and then on to Emerald the next day.
Emerald is a thriving country town with good services and shopping. The weather is extremely hot for this time of year, high 30’s. The town has some interesting street art, a heritage listed Railway Station and a giant easel displaying a huge copy of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting as this was a major sunflower growing area. Several pieces of 250 million year old fossilised wood are displayed outside the Emerald Town Hall.
The district now produces sorghum, cotton, other grains and fruit with irrigation available from Lake Maraboon. The lake was created in 1972 with the construction of Fairbairn Dam. We had a picnic at the lake which is a popular recreational facility.
A trip to the nearby Sapphire Gemfields towns of Anakie, Sapphire and Rubyvale was very interesting. We visited an underground mine at Rubyvale and all towns are dotted with gemshops and galleries. Small dwellings are occupied by full-time and part-time fossickers and many travellers in caravans, tents and trailers also try their luck at finding a treasure. We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn again, half way between Sapphire and Rubyvale and discovered a very remote bottle shop which seemed to be doing a roaring trade. Many ‘quirky’ sites can be seen in these remote areas.
