Herberton & Irvinebank Mining Trail

CONTENT: Australia / Herberton / Irvinebank / Queensland Outback
READ TRAVEL JOURNAL BELOW
TRAVEL JOURNAL:
06-10.10.2020
Though being hardly 100 km away from the Tropical Coast, part 19 of our Far North Queensland Trip notices a sudden change in nature. Green lush hills give way to dry heat and dry landscapes. This episode is all about old diesel engines and relics of Australian mining history.
After the epic long-feared hike to Mount Bartle Frere and touring around the waterfall circuit of Atherton Tablelands; visiting the highest town of Queensland; Millstream falls and Tully gorge, we took the direction back North to visit Herberton Historic Village.
Group of fellow travellers from our Cape York adventures times were camping at Irvinebank and highly recommended the Irvinebank Free Camp at Bill Newburn Park. “Free camp with hot showers, could you imagine!” Indeed, adjacent to historic Irvinebank School of Arts Hall stands a toilet block. Each morning came the local council worker to clean it. There is a donation box for contributions.
Irvinebank free camp was so different from the free camps on touristic routes. Instead of young crowd, most campers were retired temporary residents. All you needed for longer stay, was to set up a bit shade and spread out the solar panels.
Though so close to Cairns, Atherton Tablelands and full of interesting history, Irvinebank felt half abandoned by tourists. Local community seems to have placed lot of time and resources to attract visitors and make the visit affordable: the tiny town is packed with well-preserved artefacts from the pioneering days of local mining history. Historical dwellings are full of collections and open for visitors, well-kept walkways take you around the historical buildings, the dam and cute local homes. One way, very similar to Herberton Historic Village, with only difference that the local people actually lived there and called the village their home.
A place certainly not to miss in Irvinebank was Brian’s Shed. Brian has spent all his life mining and gathered an extensive collection of old mining machinery and historical bric-a-brac. With sincere Brian fired his old engines. It was just two of us and Brian spent more than 2 hours showing us around and talking about the olden days. We think, a great place for school-groups to visit to learn about local history in a hands-on way.
Herberton is 26 km from Irvinebank and Herberton Historic Village offers 3-day pass. That proofed to be a very accommodating deal for us as the open-air museum was full of exhibits. To be precise, not only the exhibits but also constant flow of demonstrations. Due to Covid, the historical pub-café at premises was not operating. So, on arrival our first step was to go back to the town, to have some lunch. We found a lovely old-fashioned home-café serving home-made pies and scones. Herberton town has a number of mining related attractions on it’s own and a very informative visitor centre.
There is tight schedule of demonstrations held by local volunteers, but they vary from day to day. If you are interested in seeing old diesel engines fired up, and don’t want to feel rushed, consider using the option for multi-use ticket (price is the same). Stay in the area for few days and come back for another visit. We had arrived after lunch and by this time had missed some demonstrations and felt us under time pressure. As the biggest engine - English Electric Generator - got started only once per week, decision was made to come back when the “big boy” was fired up. While waiting, we camped at Irvinebank and explored the township.
During our Herberton Historic Village visit we enjoyed the considerable quietness - maybe due to Covid or due to season or combination of both, the museum was almost empty. There were demonstrations, we were the only spectators, but nowhere did we have to fight for the spot with a good view or an option to sit behind the wheel of an historic vehicle. The fact, that Wolf wanted to come back for a second day, must indicate something because he is not your typical museum guy. Seeing the farrier forging iron; old-fashioned newsagency guy printing a “Wanted” poster of yourself, engines roaming added certainly livelihood to the museum.
NEXT
We follow the old Burke-Herberton-Petford mining route towards inland and arrive to geologically diverse area of Chillagoe - home for the abandoned smelters and extensive network of limestone caves with spectacular karst formations.
If you want to see some photos, have a look on our Instagram page.
/ sweephorizon
Filmed and edited with IPhone 7
Enjoy watching!!!
#sweephorizon

[@louisecross]

Awesome footage, thanks

[@sweephorizon]

Thank you very much! It is a pleasure

[@michaelstahl3404]

voll geil -- Woolf-Gang

[@sweephorizon]

Es war sehr interessant zu sehen, wie in alten Zeiten gedruckt wurde.