Working our passage

iOM bought Civic Guides earlier this year. For those of you unfamiliar, Civic Guides looks like this….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and iOM is the outdoor business in which I had an interest until 10 years ago. I was asked to help out since we were to be in some areas where advertising sales needed to be made. So Charters Towers turned out to be a litmus test. In the current outback economic environment I was more than a little apprehensive but it didn’t turn out too bad. I can’t talk about the millions I made but it was a bit of fun, something I haven’t done for a very long time.

And, Charters Towers turned out to be a very nice place to be whilst I wet the litmus. CT was once a big town of 27000 but today is down to under 10000. The town belies its low population as it is very spread out and the main streets are endowed with some beautiful large old buildings. It has a “gold rush” history, back to the late 1800’s. At one stage it had 95 pubs but it’s now down to probably just 10 or 12. Many of the old pubs still exist as private residences.

We stayed in a caravan park that put on dinners and entertainment most nights. Dinners were fund raisers for various organisations at typically $15.00 a head for a 3 course meal in the camp kitchen and on alternate nights Neil Macarthur sprouted bush poetry. Funny as a circus but I can’t remember one so we had to buy his CD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, Charters Towers has a hill behind it called, of all things, Tower Hill. On Tower Hill are some 30 concrete bunkers built by the Americans in 1942 to house armaments for back up for the defences at Townsville. These are all empty shells these days but do make for a unique landscape set against a lot of old gold mines and the remnants of a chemical processing plant for the production of gold separating chemical….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and here’s some of the earlier built history …..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

most of which have gone through relatively recent renovation and look beautiful. The theatre, image 4 above is currently undergoing such a reno. There appears a high level of civic pride throughout the township. All of the parks and gardens are meticulously maintained.

Then there was the swap meet. Queens Birthday long weekend saw the city come alive, at least while the weather held out and a variety of events around town including  massive ‘burn-out’ comp…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

for which this truck proved the star attraction. We went out to the venue but the smell of burning rubber quickly turned us away. Eventually found the showgrounds to see what the swap meet had to offer and found this…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

but he wasn’t gunna swap it for anything. Nor were any of these gunna be swapped on the day unless it was for many many  many banknotes..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but a smattering of vehicles on display – I would guess over 200 vehicles of all descriptions out for an event that is 145 km from the nearest major city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a little bit of British to finish off with, the underdogs of what mainly is an all American display.

Off in another corner of the showgrounds was in fact the swap meet but inspection failed to uncover anything remotely of interest, let alone value.

A tour of the Venus Gold Stamper demonstrated yet again the ingenuity of our predecessors. Crushing gold bearing rock to flush out the gold using initially mercury and then cyanide, whilst a little harsh on the employees who maybe lived to 40 if they were lucky, proved very effective in extracting the gold. And made many millionaires…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The guided tour was worth every penny – more information on the gold leaching process than we had previously known and a fascinating tale of human exploitation. Wish we could still get away with these things – oh! they do in India and China and most other third world places.

The miners cottage, the Civic Club, the museum, the ambulance museum, all places of interest and all hard to absorb. So much information, so much history.