Day 11 - 16/7/2013 - Charters Towers - Ravenshoe

Started out fairly early and by 9am we were at the first site we wanted to inspect, an old gold battery still in working order.

But it wouldn't open till 10am so on we moved to Towers Hill where one of the gold mines was in the 1870s.

Gold was first discovered in 1871 in Charters Towers and it is a typical gold mining town with some quite large and beautiful buildings built when there was plenty of money in the town.

In this shot from Towers Hill you can clearly see the tower of the old Post Office which is still in use today.

 

Here it is a bit closer up.

 The town had its' own Stock Exchange where gold mining shares were traded on a daily basis.

After a quick stop at Vinnies, for that item "I should have bought yesterday.........." it was off to Greenvale, a planned distance of about 200km.

Came past a big free camp site at Fletchers Creek, about 40km north of Charters Towers and there were heaps of campers there, obviously a popular site.

Got to Greenvale about lunch time and we weren't all that impressed with either the surroundings or the camping facilities.

Stopped there for lunch though and had heaps of interest from the local bird population!

Decided to push on another 200k to Archers Creek, 15km before Ravenshoe, (#236 - Camps 6 - Qld)

 

The people in the tri-axle van being towed by an Isuzu truck have been on the road for 13 years and they don't own a home, this is it!

This campsite was next to a fairly fast flowing river and it rained all night here, we woke up to a very wet site.