Eggbert's Travels

Tuesday 22^nd August 2017

SHE SAID:

Bustards, Bison, Swagman & mining!

We drove around 40km down the road from Grass Hut Station to the historic old gold mining town of Ravenswood today. There were Bison in one of the fields, Bustards on the roadside, & a swagman with loaded mule having a spell under a gum tree, along the route!

Ravenswood was still a “living town”, though much reduced from it's heyday of around 2000 inhabitants & 40+ pubs, to about 200 people,& 2 pubs. Both pubs/hotels were lovely old buildings, & there were quite a few other old buildings along the main street & in the surrounding area.

After seeing the town we headed out to the mine lookout & the quartz outcrop, strangely named White Blow!

We spent the afternoon at the van, overlooking what is now our own “private creek”; it was a lovely, peaceful, sunny afternoon.

Whoops spoke too soon! Another van has just arrived!

This old place was still lived in till the 1980's.

Its original owners, the Butler's, had 21 children!

It is not known whether they were all one family or if some of they were adopted

This hotel has recently been sold & the new owners are keen to get

it all done up & make the town a thriving place

Some of the other old buildings around town

The hotel at the other end of town

The Catholic Church is high on the hill over looking town,

although these days it is used for all flavours of religion!

Most surprisingly filling up here was the same price as the cheapest fuel in Tully!

$1.22!

The lookout over the old gold mine above the town.

Further over in the distance they are still mining for gold

Station Art....

Around the camp fire

HE SAID:

Rather surprisingly to me, there was a coffee van in the main street of Ravenswood. As far as I could see there was no café in town, so the girl that ran the van must have felt that it was a better prospect than renting premises. Anyway, I had a good coffee there.

The station owner stopped by the campfire in the evening, so I asked him why they had some bison here. He said that they bought the bison already trained for practising campdrafting. Apparently they are rather clever, and maintain their condition when used for the campdraft training. He reckons that one bison is equal to 6 cattle for this.