Charters Towers

Formerly one of the biggest goldrush meccas of the late 19th century the city still boasts well maintained buildings as a reminder of past glories. It plays a lot on the gold heritage but still seems to be a thriving centre en route to the outback.

Click on a picture for a larger version.

City Centre - 13/06/08

Ambulance station

Once a hotel, now the library

Main St

Not like Targets back home!

Stock exchange, modelled after big city Victorian arcades

Diorama of the stock dealing

Old Post Office

Around the City - 14/06/08

Old mine poppet

Newspaper office

Front of the Stock Exchange

Masonic Lodge, many towns here boast them

Venus Mill - 14/06/08

Aussie signage does not always tell you the way to go, but this one tells you the way not to!

This was a public mill where small mines could bring their ore for processing (ran 1872-1973)

Weighbridge mechanism

Hologram presentation on the mill's history

Steam engine parts from another mill, the Venus Mill was converted to electricity and the engine sold for scrap

Another presentation projected on a water spray

Hoppers where miners dropped their ore

And the milling process: from the hopper...

Once all the oversize pieces has been broken with a sledge hammer they are lifted by this conveyor...

and crushed in the battery with water and mercury

Some of the gold is captured immediately on trays

Each hammer in the battery would wear from the large to small pieces of cast metal in the foreground in 2 months

The whole mill ran on pulleys, wheels and rods from one steam engine

At one time 7 loads could be processed entirely separately at one time. Over time the number were reduced as parts were canibalized for spares

Captured gold amalgam slurry was collected here for heat processing into metallic gold recovering most of the mercury (which was even more expensive than gold!)