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Chillagoe - September 2020
It is only 32 kilometres from Almaden to Chillagoe. Some of the road is unsealed, but it is much improved since my last visit in the 1970s. The teeth shattering corrugated road back then is now better maintained and a fair part of it sealed, but it is still very dusty in places. In fact, the roadside trees are dripping with dust, as is our car.
We had coffee and a chat in the general store on arrival, marveling at what was available in the aisles of the shop. Reg wanted the life size sculpture of a giraffe, but wasn’t prepared to give up his spot in the car for it.
Fortified with caffeine, our next stop was the cemetery, well kept and filled with many quirky and different graves. I found my great-great-grandmother’s grave marker and the headstone of her grandson. This lady had been the wife of the Lutheran Pastor in Charters Towers, but after his death she remarried a miner and ended up on the Chillagoe goldfields from 1911 until her death in 1943. So, in the last week I have stood in the house she lived in in Charters Towers, and beside the grave she now lies in in Chillagoe.
Fortified with caffeine, our next stop was the cemetery, well kept and filled with many quirky and different graves. I found my great-great-grandmother’s grave marker and the headstone of her grandson. This lady had been the wife of the Lutheran Pastor in Charters Towers, but after his death she remarried a miner and ended up on the Chillagoe goldfields from 1911 until her death in 1943. So, in the last week I have stood in the house she lived in in Charters Towers, and beside the grave she now lies in in Chillagoe.
Chillagoe is a busy little town at present thanks to COVID-19 sending Queenslanders out exploring their home state. The caves out here are a popular attraction and we were fortunate to make a tour due to a late cancellation by someone else. About 400 million years ago Chillagoe was the site of a sea with thriving coral reefs. Over time, the limestone formed by those ancient reefs folded, stretched, heated and weathered to form the jagged, glittering limestone bluffs and underground caves that characterise this remarkable landscape today.
We spent time at other local attractions including the old smelting works, the local swimming hole, a museum or two, and more. So much to do out here that we were sorry we had only allocated two days.