Thirty-two years consigns us to history, a discovery noted during our August Mt Morgan mini-break and my first return to the famed mine since working there in 1986. We’d first thought to head up there in November last year, before remembering that Sagittarius with his oxy-acetylene torch and the summer solstice were getting fearfully close to that neck of the woods. Sweating in a porcine torrent decided against, instead the Pigman Wenteth into NSW where it was cooler, albeit very moist from the experienced rains.
The bikes inspected, it was decided that the 19,600km on the Precious’ rear Mitas E-07 tyre still positioned it in the “in its late prime” category. No time to get it changed anyway, so at about 1:30pm on a Thursday, we finished our packing and hit the road. This trip had been sort of half planned with regard to route, with Kroombit Tops near Biloela and Mt Morgan the only priorities, but zero thought had gone into stopovers. The GPS clearly stated that sundown was at 5:34pm, so we avoided any twisting road distractions north of Brisbane and went straight up the Bruce Highway, turning off toward Kilcoy. We arrived there with about 2 or so hours of daylight left, so decided to push on.
The Kilcoy-Murgon road is a gem, with winding bitumen up to Jimna, then good quality dirt before it pops out on the Wide Bay highway at Kinbombi. Any pretense of being hard-core adventure riders took a big hit about half way along with a group of road bikes coming the other way. Toward the end the pace slowed significantly due to swarming pretty-faced wallabies (obviously named by a pioneer who was single, lonely and a bit creepy) that were always in a pack in the middle of the road just over the crest of hills, waiting to throw themselves under the aging Mitases. It was with some relief that we hit the highway, with only 6km west remaining into the blinding sunset to Goomeri. Goomeri is pronounced Goo-mary rather than Gooma-rye, a fact not confirmed until two days later with subsequent intense but failed efforts at trying to remember how we’d been pronouncing it to the locals in the Goo-mary pub.
Following some unforgettable hotel incidents in recent times in Narrabri and Toowoomba, motels were the preference on this trip, and The Goomeri Motel owned by Mr and Mrs Duncan was every bit as good as their owner’s name suggested; spacious, clean, quiet, and a short stroll to Joe’s Grand Hotel. A very northern winery just down the road provided the drinks, and the food was excellent, so off to a great start.
Day 2 Friday commenced with a stroll about town looking for breakfast, with 8:30am considered fractionally too early for a pie so we ended up at the only café. On the bikes, we headed up to Ban Ban Springs for fueloleum, then took the first “unknown” road of the trip due north-ish to Mt Perry. Some rumours abounded regarding a tunnel in the Mt Perry area, mainly generated by Cindy, so we pushed on expecting nothing more interesting than a good quality dirt road north of Byrnestown. And then suddenly we arrived at Mingo Crossing, obviously the first non-Gomads to discover this location as the place on the Burnett River lagoon was swarming with vans. To make a point that we were hard core adventurers, we pulled up in an obvious place and used the van park facilities to boil the kettle on the Jetboil and have a cuppa, without realising that the cuppa ritual is a bit like a Masonic handshake to Gomads, who accepted us into their secretive society without question.
Non-Satanic cuppa ritual completed, we were back on and continued north to Mt Perry. The road was a bit of a mix between bitumen, gravel, and a dirt surface that was so straight, hard packed and free of loose material that it could only be described as bravel, or maybe gitumen. After accidentally reaching 130kmh for a brief stretch, we meandered into Mt Perry.
No stops were called for as we were on a mission to find the tunnel, originally heard about from BMWMCQ friends during our Agnes Waters trip earlier in the year. Normally I sort out the navigation, but somehow Cindy seemed to have determined exactly where the tunnel was, which was fortunate as the GPS attractions categories didn’t include tunnels, and I had no idea. With an alert from Cindy noted, we swung on to a dirt track happily named Tunnel Road and wended our way through the scrub and a couple of gates to reach the Boolboonda Tunnel, the longest unsupported tunnel in Queensland. As we’d come through from the Mt Perry side, we rode through before getting to the information board which informed us that we’d just ridden through a Little Bent-Wing Bat colony, so probably now had lyssavirus or at least histoplasmosis from inhaling bat droppings.
After the photos and learning of the history of the tunnel which was constructed in 1883-1884 to service the expanding Mt Perry mining area, we decided that we could probably get a good couple of weeks in before dying of lyssavirus so there was no point hanging about. We rode back into Mt Perry, where a Smelter sign caught our attention. At this precise moment, the trip officially transitioned from a ride up to Mt Morgan to a mining history tour. Mt Perry started in the 1860’s when rich copper ore was discovered, and smelting started in the 1870’s. Underground mining was finished in 1913 but the area still has active mining, with the Mt Rawdon gold mine only 5km to the south-east pumping out 100,000 ounces of gold every year since 2001.
Some mining FOMO calmed, we headed west along variable quality roads to join the Burnett Highway and crack on to Monto for lunch. Recharged, options for more mine or scenic tourism were researched otherwise we’d be getting to our now-planned overnight at Biloela way too early. Discussion with a local over options indicated that Cania Gorge was popular with Gomads, and as they had ignored us once already after we’d Jane Goodalled them at Mingo Crossing, there was no reason to think they wouldn’t again. Fueled up, we headed north into Cania Gorge National Park, which has rock formations vaguely similar to the Warrumbungles down in NSW. We snuck into the Cania caravan park, and briefly discussed the possibility of staying in a cabin in the heart of a Gomad troop and going for a big walk. A visit to the very helpful lady in the Cania caravan park shop and we had a new plan, plus a plan for sometime in the future to see the site of “Beautiful Betsy”, a Liberator bomber that crashed into Kroombit Tops in 1945 and was only discovered in 1994. The new plan was to check out Cania Dam, and then do a mining heritage walk and check out the plethora of old Shamrock Mine workings which were about 800m off the road heading up to a small hill before the Cania escarpment.
Mining FOMO quenched again, we were back on for the final part of the day’s venture up the not-really-inspirational Burnett Highway into the blinding sunset to Biloela. After about ten laps around the town past fake motels that the GPS insisted were there but weren’t, we alighted at the pleasant and convenient Central Motel. The shops were still open, so a quick trip into Biloela Target and I had a pair of cheap yet classy pants to replace the filthy stained work jeans I had somehow confused with smart casuals when packing. Meal options are a bit limited in Biloela, and no amount of googling could locate a boutique craft brewery, so we settled on the Commercial Hotel for drinks and meals.
Day 3 started well with a large breakfast café discovered directly across the road. High level planning the night before had two objectives for the day; hard-core adventure riding in the Kroombit Tops National Park, before heading up to Mt Morgan where the plan would end, and we’d figure it out from there. The GPS got the plan a bit mixed up and assumed we’d want to go to Mt Morgan first, so some detours were required, and a new route was set by the GPS to come in to Kroombit Tops NP from the north. The detour took us past the Callide power station, once managed by a friend of ours, and we took a detour from the detour to head up the scenic lookout which gave impressive views over the power stations and back toward Biloela.
Arriving at the turn-off to Kroombit Tops NP, the signs saying that there was no access to Kroombit Tops NP was a bit of a set-back in the plan. We decided to keep going as there was a historic hotel site a bit further on, although this turned out to be a pile of old burned lumber without any obvious historic value. So yet again we decided to keep going as the GPS mentioned it was quicker than turning around.
We headed up the range back toward the Dawson Highway, hoping to get a view of the mythical Kroombit Tops from the high ground. An open area near the summit looked hopeful but had a lot of trees blocking the view, so I took off into the scrub to do a U-turn to head back onto the road. The traction control kicked in when I hit a rock, resulting in a drop of The Precious and a lot of swearing. After getting the bike up, and pushing it across the road, I decided that the Feng Shui wasn’t quite right so pushed it toward a flat bit then dropped it again. The swearing rate became exponential at this point, especially when it was discovered that oil was leaking out. Once The Precious was back upright, inspection indicated that the leak was probably coming from around the output shaft driving the front sprocket, so a seal must have gone which explains why oil consumption has been high for the past 30,000km.
The suggestion of a cuppa to stop the discharging expletive glands was well received, and soon afterward we hit the Dawson Highway and cruised back to the Burnett Highway for the final push to Mt Morgan. We arrived there conveniently around lunch-time, but the heritage tour took precedence and we rode around the confusing streets as I tried to find the crossing to the mine site and the road up to the lookout by scanning brain data from 1986. We located the mine site, or at least the gate blocking us from the mine site, then after 4 turnarounds managed to get to the lookout which gave a nice panorama of the very hilly town and the mine site.
Some lunch in town and a bit of a wander about, and then the accommodation options were reviewed. It was the show weekend in Mt Morgan, and although this didn’t seem to mean the motels were chokkas, their lack of stars and location on the outskirts meant we were probably better off down on the coast. Turned out that the coast was chokkas because of a festival at Yeppoon, so we took the middle ground and decided Rockhampton would do. A blast off the escarpment down the winding road into Bouldercombe was excellent at high speed or it was in 1986 because they’ve since reduced the speed limit to 40kmh which makes it not excellent. A hotel (proper one, not a pub for which phobias are still evident) was found in the middle of town, and we headed out to Yeppoon just to check it out. The festival hadn’t really started, but a nice iced coffee overlooking the Keppel Islands and a trundle down to Emu Park before the ride back into the blinding sunset and Rockhampton saw out the day.
Day 4 or Sunday was the big official Mt Morgan day, with a tour planned at 10am. Firstly we had to stop for a photo at the Tropic of Capricorn, the previous time we had crossed it was in Namibia.
By 10am we were in Mt Morgan, we’d had a coffee, and we’d parked the bikes in the shade at the Mt Morgan Railway Station forcing the Gomads to park their 50m long vehicles out in the sun. The tour of the town and mine was excellent, run by a long-time resident of the town who actually appreciated my input into the history of the mine in the 1980’s when tailings were dredged up to recover the gold using more advanced technology than was available in the early days.
An important but little-known fact about Mt Morgan is that the incredible wealth generated for one of the owners, William Knox D’arcy, was used to fund oil exploration in Iran that resulted in the foundation of British Petroleum and the conversion of all ships in the British Navy from coal fired to oil fired, which changed the course of history.
After checking out where I’d stayed and worked, we were a bit disappointed to find that tours of the dinosaur footprints in the clay mine above Mt Morgan could not be taken for safety reasons. I had very clear memories of this amazing attraction, in 1986 the clay mine was on the Mt Morgan lease so one weekend a few of us set off to have a look. The clay was the bed of an old lake and was walked on by dinosaurs leaving footprints in the soft surface. Sand had deposited over the top of the clay, and over time had turned into sandstone. The miners had driven tunnels into the clay for brick making, and the inverse dinosaur footprints along the ceiling were one of the most incredible things I have seen in Australia. Hopefully the tunnels will one day be re-opened for tourists.
After the tour and a quick lunch in town at a nice bakery, we started the southern run by going back down the escarpment at slightly more than 40kmh before getting onto the Bruce Highway to Calliope. We needed some dirt by this stage having not had much for two days, so took the Gladstone-Monto Road, finally discovering a signed road that led to Kroombit Tops although far too late to be useful, before ending the riding heading toward the blinding sunset into Monto. The GPS once again became annoying and insisted we were but metres away from the Monto Colonial Motor Inn no matter where we were in the town, but eventually we found it using the proven “ride up and down every bloody street” method. The motel was very pleasant and nearly empty, so following a stroll into town and an excellent steak at the Albert Hotel it was off to bed.
We thought that Monday mornings were pretty casual in Monto, until discovering that it was the Brisbane Show Day holiday for everywhere except Brisbane. Only the service station was open to provide both breakfast and fuel. Once charged, we decided that a reverse run through Mt Perry was called for just so we could ride the gitumen or bravel road to Mingo Crossing once more. 160kmh was reached this time, setting a new speed record for dirt road riding which is unlikely to be broken until I forget how scary hitting the odd patch of loose stuff can be. A cuppa at Mingo Crossing among many of the same Gomads who had been there four days previously, and we made it into Goo-mary for lunch. The bakery was the chosen place for another pie, where they proved once more that whatever variety of pie you want, they’ll have just run out of that one, so you’ll always just get an unpopular curry or chicken pie. As speed was of the essence, we decided that the Kilcoy-Murgon Road dirt option was going to take too long so did the Burnett Highway to Nanango and the D’Aguilar Highway back to the Bruce, finishing the 1,800km and 4½ day trip by finally heading east away from the blinding sunset to home.
The video production of some of the trip highlights can be found in the following YouTube link, produced and directed by C. Bennett, usually starring D. Bennett because he happens to be riding in front. Music score selection by C. Bennett because there is no way D. Bennett would use any of those.
travellingbennetts 