Hi again Roger,
Thanks for the interesting question. I'm sure that the Palmer River
gold miners of the 1870s would never have believed that 130 years
later I would be able to have a virtual visit to North Queensland from
my desk on the other side of the world! It has definitely proved to
be challenging research, but I hope you enjoy the results...
The Palmer River gold fields, which were mined extensively from 1873
until the early 1910s, were one of the richest sources of gold in the
whole of Australia. They were first discovered in August 1872 by an
expedition lead by William Hann, whose finds provided impetus for the
establishment of Cooktown. Miners travelling overland from west of
Cairns were so successful in the first few months subsequent to the
gold field discovery, that once takings of up to 3 kilograms in 3
months were reported, a true gold rush started.
Although named after Captain James Cook, the area which became
Cooktown was visited by Cook for just "48 days in 1770 on the banks of
the Endeavour River repairing his ship, after damaging it on the Great
Barrier Reef."
Quoted from: Cairns Visitors Information
http://www.cairnsweb.com.au/guide/regions/cooktown_info.htm
Upon the rush to mine Palmer River gold, Cooktown became a busy port
as the primary export point for the miners' findings despite the fact
that the only access was via very rugged countryside on foot or
horseback. The story of the development of routes to Palmer River
from Cooktown is told at:
Wilderness Expeditions: Operation Mulligan
http://www.athertontablelandnetguide.com/wilderness/expeditions/mulligan.htm
The locations you specified in the question, Maytown and Byerstown,
were very important towns at the time the gold rush, as stated by:
Aussie Gold Locations
http://www.uq.net.au/~zzdvande/palmer.html
"The main mining centers were in Maytown, Palmerville and Jessops Hill
with the goldfield totalling an area close on 9000km square. The
Palmer and all of its tributaries were worked from the junction of
Campbell creek (65km north of Maytown) to Strathleven. The most
productive region was between Byerstown and Fish Creek Junction."
A large proportion of the mined gold was mined by Chinese diggers,
largely due to the vastly inflated gold price in Hong Kong at the
time. 'Aussie Gold Locations' (see link above) quote the difference
in prices at the time as "3p 17s an ounce" in Australia versus "5
pound per ounce" in Hong Kong!
The main gold rush at Palmer River lasted roughly 12 years although
mining continued for several more decades. There are not substantial
quantities of gold remaining now, but Maytown is probably one of the
better places to visit:
EarthSci.org : Gold Placer Deposits
http://earthsci.org/mindep/depfile/auplace.htm#palmerriver
"A good place to start looking would be in Maytown as every creek and
gully for a radius of 10km yielded gold . Overall the soil cover
averages a depth of 30cm which means that most detectors could easily
find any nuggets left behind by the old timers."
Just in case you find yourself with a few hours to try some gold
panning, the following sites contain useful guides to improve your
technique :)
TEN SIMPLE STEPS To Gold Panning Success
http://www.uq.net.au/~zzdvande/panning.html
Panning for Gold
http://earthsci.org/mindep/depfile/auplace.htm#panning
There would appear not to be many online references to Spear Creek,
your third listed location. Searching is complicated somewhat by the
fact that "Spear Creek" is also a back-packer tourist attraction in
South Australia in the Flinders Ranges, and the vast majority of
results refer to this. If you would like more information about Spear
Creek, North Queensland, let me know and I will extend my search to
off-line sources.
With regards to your photography of the area, there are some amazing
sights to be seen. The following sites gave me a good idea of nature
of the countryside.
North Queensland Photos by Massimo Casulini
http://www.msoft.it/pages/casulini/queensland2.htm
North Queensland Recreation Photos
http://fnq.worldtourism.com.au/recreation.htm
Webshots Community - Great Barrier Reef and Cairns
http://community.webshots.com/album/11890384jobNgqUftr
I'm sure that armed with a digital camera, you will be able to come
back from Palmer River with equally good, if not better, pictures of
the region's outdoors.
In addition to the above, here are some additional related links I
found on my travels around North Queensland:
Cairns Museum: Table of Gold Fields in North Queensland
http://www.cairnsmuseum.org.au/mining.htm
Cairns Visitors Information
http://www.cairnsweb.com.au
Visit Cape York
http://www.visitcapeyork.com/
I hope this answer is of the style you had in mind; if you would like
elaboration or clarification on any point I will do my best to dig up
some more information. North Queensland definitely does seem like a
beautiful place - a few more GA questions answered and I'll be able to
wing my way over there to see it all first hand!
Kind regards,
mcfly :0)
**Search strategy**
Various combinations of:
"palmer river" australia
"palmer river" goldfield
maytown OR byerstown OR "spear creek" queensland
queensland history
"cape york" map
queensland map
"north queensland" tourism
"palmer river" australia tourism
"spear creek" "north queensland"
allintitle: "spear creek"
"north queensland" photos |
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