Chillagoe Part 1

Balancing Boulder

European Honey Bees

The Green-Outback

 Chillagoe is a tiny town that used to be a mining hub for copper, silver, gold, and other metals. As tour-guide Toe-Knee put it “It is one of those places that seems to stand still in time.”
It’s located beyond the Tablelands at the very beginning of the Outback.
This was rather difficult to believe as it was incredibly green!
    The area around Chillagoe has received so much rain this year that the grass is taller then the red kangaroos that feed on it. And it presents a beautiful contrast against the termite mounds made out of the characteristic-outback-red soil. Some of these mound were only a foot or so high, but others were the size of small boulders.
    We arrived around lunch time and ate at the local pub, where we would have the majority of that weekend’s meals and become quite at home with the locals. We stayed just down the road at this camper cabin place. Each cabin had a small kitchenette and some beds, and was only a short walk from the communal toilet. It also had the most amazing climbing tree!
    After a short break we hopped back in the van to have a look at Balancing Boulder and some rock imagery, to see the old mine, and go swimming.
    Balancing Boulder is not really balancing it merely has this appearance because of where the limestone has eroded away. The pictographs were on the other side of the limestone bluff and were not in the best condition but it was still cool to see them none the less.
    The Chillagoe mine followed the boom and bust cycle to a tea. It went up fast, with towers, trucks, and even a rail line and busted so quickly and completely that all the equipment was left where it stood. And I mean all of it, jeeps, rail pieces, everything. Including an enormous slag heap, you don’t even realize where it is until you get to the edge of it because it’s been leveled out as a parking area. Then you look down and see all the metals and minerals glinting back up at you from the ground. Its so hard to describe just how large that slag heap is and then to comprehend what that means in terms of environmental safety. They say there is no leaching from the slag, but I doubt it.
    The towers left from the processing mill are still the tallest structure around and have become one of the places in Queensland most often hit by lightning. It gets hit so often that the park had to install a lightening rod near by to preserve the towers for their historic cultural value. Its really sad to see the remnants of so much wasteful policy.

I will finish describing the trip to Chillagoe latter. The caves really deserve a post all to themselves

Mining Tower

Slag-pile from the mine. Taken while standing on another portion of the slag-pile.