A DAY TRIP TO MOUNT MORGAN...

 One of the things Ian and Kathy were keen to do when they came to visit was take a trip up to Mount Morgan.  It was over 30 years since they had been up there.  I love going up there so I was definitely keen to do that.....

We got up and had a leisurely cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs together before packing a picnic lunch that we could all share...

It was after 9.30am before we got away... We had decided to drive out past Gracemere and drive through Kabra and up the Razorback to approach Mt Morgan and then come home via the Mount Morgan range as the view was much better coming down the range rather than going up it...

We had not only packed lunch but had packed a nice morning tea as well.  I had baked some blueberry muffins the previous day and Kathy had made a boiled fruit cake and along with crackers and cheese we had a pretty good spread to have with our cuppas..

Once we got there we headed for the picnic tables in the main street for morning tea...

Each of the picnic shelter areas are named after one of the minerals that was mined in the Mount Morgan mine and we ended up having our morning tea in the "Copper" shelter shed..

 

 We had packed a little tablecloth as the last time I was up here, the tables were pretty dirty from all the bird crap. 

Enjoying our morning tea...

 

 Whilst the boys packed up our picnic baskets, and went and put them into the car, Kathy was keen to inspect the Rack and Pin rail display that was situated near by...

Reading all about the Rack and Pin rail line..

 

There were only two rack railway systems in Australia, the other being on the private Mount Lyell railway in Tasmania which although closed in 1963 for a period of time, has now been fully restored and is in operation again today as a tourist attraction in the area... Interestingly we traveled on this train when we visited Tasmania several years ago..  We also traveled on a rack and pin train when visiting Switzerland a few years ago also.... 

This particular rack-rail consisted of two parallel serrated bars, about 2.5 inches apart and so arranged that the indentations on one bar were exactly opposite to the teeth on the other bar. There were two sets of pinions under the rack, arranged in such a manner that two pinions were always engaged with the teeth of the rack-rails at any time.
Most rack engines, including those used at Mount Morgan, were built according to a system patented in 1882 by Roman Abt and first used in 1885. The standard of maintenance of the rack engine needed to be very high and they were regularly overhauled at Rockhampton with standard maintenance by the staff of the locomotive depot at Mount Morgan. There were eight rack engines and they operated for fifty four years - from 1898 to 1952.

 

Being close to Spring, the gardens in this area were ablaze with colour adding a lovely charm to the town.  Once the guys had off loaded our picnic baskets, they headed off to the toilet whilst Kathy and I walked across to the shops for a wander down the main street...

 

 

beautiful flowering Christmas bell plant..

Right next door to the bakery is a little vacant allotment that has been done up with all these fake plants made from plastic bottles.  It has been set up to create a garden area....  It is very colourful and adds a character and charm to this little town...

Totem pole art made from recycled plastic cap lids...

impressive art installations...

 

 

This time whilst we were there we found a little painted rock garden hidden down in the back corner also.  People have obviously been contributing to it and had I of known, I wouold have bought a few of my painted rocks up to place in the garden also..

In this little gardened section we also came across a book share box, where you could spare your books for others so that you can borrow a book and replace it with one of your old books...

We even came across a couple of bug hotels although didn't see too much evidence of too many bugs making their homes in here...

Once we had wandered through this area we headed up the road.  I was keen to show them the news agency where I had found so many interesting bits and pieces the last time  I had visited.  Once again it didn't disappoint.  In fact the displays were totally this time.

Standing outside the Mount Morgan Bakery..

Public toilets in Mount Morgan -  old world charm

The main street is like something out of an old western movie... a special charm...

It's own special charm

The newsagency I love to visit is right down near the main highway through town, but I do love to visit this store when in town.  It has such a huge range of very different things, include homewares, games, cards and gorgeous cards at that... different to the normal ones you see in a newsagency... much more variety here.  They also have a little coffee shop in the newsagency also.

There is a toy section which my grandchildren would love... can't help but take photos of some of the lovely bits and pieces stocked in here. 

Ian and Kathy bought one of these little clocks for their van.  It wasn't terribly expensive.  Not only does it tell the time, but also the temperature, the weather and is also a calendar and timer.  It was a bargain at $15.  I am kicking myself that I didn't buy one for our van now...

They even have a small coffee shop..

Whilst Ian and Kathy were finalizing their purchases, Steve and I walked across the road to check out the "Running of the Cutter" Statue.  I had checked this out the last time I was in Mount Morgan a couple of months ago but Steve hadn't seen it yet...

This Running of the Cutter Statue represents an interesting past tradition carried out in Mount Morgan from 1900 – 1918. At the time of this unique custom, a billycan was known as a “cutter”. There are a number of tales behind this past custom, but often the “running” of the Cutter refers to the task which was carried out by a young local daily. It is said that when a miner finished his shift, he would have a young lad run to a nearby hotel with his billycan, have it filled with beer and brought back to him as he came off shift.
Another chapter of the “running” is said to have been established by miners who wished to head home straight from work, or a number of miners’ wives who tired of their husbands returning home late for meals; sending their children to fetch Dad a billy of beer and have it waiting for him at the end of his shift. It is believed that the rising cost of beer caused publicans to put an end to the billy can, and cease the tradition of running the cutter.

Both Steve and Ian had their photos taken with the "Runner"....

There are some beautiful old buildings in the town also,  lovely old pubs and dance halls which no expense was spared when building.  The town mined gold back in the 1800s so these buildings were quite elaborate to fit in with the bright future that Mount Morgan had back in those days..

The Abbie and Michael Rowe Arbour is a newer addition to the main street area of Mount Morgan.

This five metre arbour sculpture stands pride of place as a tribute to Mount Morgan, its incredible history, and some of its inspirational residents.   The creation of the arbour, with its many levels and layers, partly takes its inspiration from the bench levels of the Mount Morgan Mine`s Open Cut Pit (as pictured).  Its design also commemorates a former, favourite meeting place for locals, the Mount Morgan Tree of Knowledge.  This fig tree, planted in the 1920s, provided a cool shady resting place where many stories were shared until it sadly succumbed to disease in 2011.  Adorned with bougainvillea, this sculpture also recognises the youth and a robust and vibrant future while the entwined, abstract trees that interconnect represent community strength and unity.  Albert (Abbie) and Michael Rowe embody those wonderful qualitities of the tree of knowledge cherished by the Mount Morgan community.

Standing in front of the Abbie & Michael Rowe Arbour in James Street, Mount Morgan

 We wandered back to the car via the centre medium strip checking out the Mafeking Bell, which has a real history in the town...

 

 

 The Mafeking Bell was cast at the Mount Morgan Mine in 1900. Made from copper pennies donated by the local school children, the bell was cast to celebrate the relief of Mafeking; held under siege for a number of months during the Boer War. The defense of Mafeking was under the command of Lord Baden Powell, founder of the Boy Scout Movement.
The Bell was originally located at the front of the town’s Council Chambers but by 1962 it was presented to the local Boy Scouts of Mount Morgan to tie its special history. The bell is now located in Morgan Street as part of the Main Street Refurbishment. The bell weighs a whopping 570kgs. Another interesting fact about the bell is that its gong was originally made from melted watch cases.

 Was pretty impressed with this lovely almost succulent grass growing in the gardens and would love to know what it is as it would look great in our garden at home also...

Really love this ground cover grass

out in full bloom

We left the main street to go for a drive up to the mine site... 

It is no longer an operating mine and the crater of the mine is now filled with water...  It is all closed off but by getting up close you do get some good views of the side walls of the open cut mine as well as some of the mine slag...

The mine site is heritage listed and only accessible to organised tours. It has a number of important buidlings including the brick chimney known as the Big Stack which was built to disperse fumes caused by the copper production. The assay chimney, the manager's house, the treatment plant and the mine offices are all extant and of historical significance. On the northern boundary of the mine lease lie some manmade caverns which were excavated by the early miners for fireclay which was used to line the furnaces used for smelting. Inside the caverns early Jurassic dinosaur footprint tracks have been found.

One of these days I would love to do the mine tour itself... This place is full of history.  Even the old school building at Ritamada ( it has now been demolished) was built by owners of the mine back at the turn of the century.  

After driving to the mine site we decided to drive up to the Lookout to get a good view of Mt Morgan.  To do this you follow the Dee River round a couple of bends.  Steve remembers the river here years ago being really discoloured with copper so rather than turning left to head up to the lookout we took a little drive further around the river bend to check out the river now...

The Mount Morgan gold mine site has been subject to both underground and surface mining operations since the late 1800's and the poor quality surface and subsurface runoff from disturbed areas, and seepage from storages has resulted in substantial environmental damage to the nearby Dee River.  Mt Morgan has the dubious distinction of being classified as the largest and worst abandoned mine pollution problem in Queensland.  

The River environment is still rather discoloured but no where near as bad as it was 20 years ago.  At least the water is clear these days.  Still not a lot of life or bird life around the river though..

From here we headed up to the Arthur Timms Lookout...  This Lookout is the closest lookout to the Mine and provides a perfect photo opportunity of the Mine from a distance and a great way to view the spanning township. The views of the old gold mine are spectacular just seeing for yourself the scale of material that was removed during its glory days.

The gardens up at the lookout were full of flowering native plants....  so much prettier than when I was last here.  Last time we were up there the flowers were not flowering at all...

We still wanted to and check out the Railway Museum before we headed to the Dam for lunch so we left the Lookout and headed back into town stopping to take a photo of a few of the murals in town before going to the Railway Station.  Mount Morgan has quite a few murals around town, many of which I photographed when we were previously here...

 

 

Before we checked out the museum we went for a little walk around the beautiful big Mortein Bay Fig trees and the lovely gardens planted around them....

 

 

Heritage listed railway station in Mt Morgan...

 

 

After walking around the garden for a while and taking a few photos we headed to the Railway Museum to check out the display they have there.  It was only $5.50 each to check out the Museum so wasn't terribly expensive and it wasn't a big museum, so we figured we would be in and out within an hour.  

Once we had paid our money we were given some 3D glasses and taken to a carriage that had been done up as a small movie theatre to watch a 10 minute movie on the Mount Morgan mine and the
Rack and Pin Railway line that came up the Razorback to transport the gold etc back down to Rockhampton.

Watching the movie about the Rail line that was built from Mt Morgan to Rocky

Kathy and I in the theatre

Ian watching the movie...

Before heading through to the rest of the displays, we had to make a visit to the toilets... Image my surprise when we walked into the toilets and found this piano in there.  We were told by the volunteer ladies that they piano can actually be played...

After the visit to the loo, we headed back to the railway tracks to check out a couple of carriages on the line...

 

 When we walked out of the little mini theatre we saw this tank and were interested to see it was made at Walkers Ltd in Maryborough.  This was where my father used to work before he was married..

 

We checked out the old carriages,  thy had a couple of dummies in there dressed in the period costumes of the day...

 

We had a little play in the drivers seat and took quite a few photos before heading out along the station platform...

 

There were a few more displays to check out...  A camp was set up which showed us how the railway builders lived when building the rail line....

The worker's camp site

There were several pieces of rail equipment scattered in the yards... not sure what they all were but they were obviously used in the station at Mt. Morgan and so now form part of the museum.

We actually found the History of the Mine rather interesting to read and we were very interested to find that the mine is now filled with water.  This was something that none of us realized.  There were photos here to show us what it looked like now...

 

 

Part of our admission cost included a cup of tea or coffee and a few biscuits so we thought we would have this now before going back inside to see the display in there...

Enjoying a cuppa with a biscuit...

After enjoying our cuppa we headed back inside to see the last of the museum.  The last room contained a lot of the office workings in running a railway... The paperwork, the ticketing, signaling and  bits and pieces...

By the time we had finished looking through the museum it was after 2pm... we still hadn't had lunch so we thought it was time to finish our sight seeing and head out to the Dam for lunch.  

As we left the Railway Station I couldn't help take some photos of these beautiful petunias that were following at the entrance to the railway..

There were a few people picnicing at the Dam when we got there but we found a tree half way down to the water's edge under the shade of a massive gum tree to have our picnic lunch..

My lunch.... the others had sandwiches...

The others enjoyed cornmeat and salad sandwiches for lunch..

Whilst we were sitting there eating our lunch there we a couple of kookaburras up in the tree eyeing off our lunch and when we least expected it, one of them made a dive down, hit the top of my head and grabbed a bit of meat out of Ian's sandwich as he was eating it.  Talk about give us a fright,  it was so unexpected...

cheeky bird dived down and piinched some of our lunch

By the time we had finished our lunch it was well after 3.30pm so thought it was time to head home...

  We drove around the dam to where I had noticed some people free camping on the other side of the dam.  It is also where there was a fingerling reef set up for all the fish that are introduced to the dam.  Steve and Kathy both took a walk down to the dam edge to have a good look at the contraptions...

We headed home by going down the main range road.  The drive home was lovely with views all the way down to Rockhampton.  Unfortunately when heading down the range you are unable to pull over into the viewing bays, but still you have great views all the way down.  

It was after 4.30pm by the time we had arrived home...  Good thing we had organised dinner before leaving this morning...  We have had a wonderful day playing tourists....  Just makes us want to get back out of the road exploring this amazing country that we live in.  Not long to wait now...