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Published: September 3rd 2013
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B2 is a trusty steed. Danger and disappointment We were supposed to stay at the Undara Experience but decided against it as we knew that there was a lovely little free camp ground in a place I've long wanted to visit because of it's close links to tin mining, my grandfather whom I never met, and the very early union movement in this fantastic country. Irvinebank is it's name and by all accounts sounds very ordinary but people it's not. It's rich in Australian history and the wealth of this great nation where people staked claims in places you dare not imagine to go.
Leaving Undara we drove to MT Garnet where we had to make a decision. We could either drive to Irvinebank on the bitumen which was about 100 plus something kilometers or turn left and drive on a tourist trail which
was forty kilometers and as the google maps stated would take ten minutes longer than the bitumen.
Wayne's eyes lit up. I said "it can't be that bad a drive if it says "tourist trail otherwise they would not sign post it that way". I should know better, I worked in the regional signs officer job for main roads. Sometimes there is rhyme or reason as to how things get signed.
The "tourist trail" commenced with 60 metres of bitumen and at 61 metres that's where the fun commenced. We drove down a decomposed granite surface for a few kilometers until we came to the first of a series of three beautiful mountain lakes. They each had levees on them , they were a deep sapphire blue colour with drowned trees in them. Steep mountainsides surrounded them and they were covered in lilac colored water lilies.
After this it pretty much became four wheel drive country with narrow roads cut against steep embankments which were on inclines of more than 25% often you couldn't see where the road was going. We climbed up steep thick timbered mountain ranges, around hairpin bends with the sun in our eyes.
We reached the top of MT Misery (not surprised by the name) because if you were an optimistic gold or tin miner in the 1870s, walking from Cairns to this place with your pick and shovel, no horse and a barely discernible road you'd have been completely frigging miserable. Even the moo cows that are anorexic look mean and unhappy. But the view across the mountain ranges is pretty amazing.
The road coming down the mountain was pretty hairy, Wayne spotted a bushfire and it was in the direction we were headed. I could feel a special kind of quiet descend over him, a concentrating, calculating, surveyor kind of quiet, where second by second he is bringing together his bush knowledge, surveyor and driving skills to decide whether we push forward or go back 140 km to get there.
There's already a special kind of quiet reserve in him anyway so I knew we were in for some serious driving that's when I shut up and let him concentrate. I had the map and was following it while keeping an eye on the billowing smoke in relation to our direction of travel. We were within four kilometers
of our destination.
We could already see that the bushfire had jumped the road in places we had passed. Wayne is a champion 4 wheel driver (there are trophies) but I could feel the palpable sense of danger because there was no room to turn around and go back the escarpments were too steep. We would have to be reversing and steeply up hill to get away from it. Coming down a very steep gully I looked to my left and there were flames in the valley very close. Wayne accelerated a little faster and the road swung very sharply away from the fire and I knew we were safe.
A rusty old sign said Irvinebank and a massive sigh of relief and we were there. We found our campsite, set up for the night and headed over to the pub.
There is a museum in Irvinebank, this is the reason I wanted to visit because my grandfather was a tin miner here, and this is the place where the first unions really took a foothold and because it was a really tough conditions and so evident of the fact that backbreaking work is what brought the
wealth to our country.
We sat at the bar and I struck up a conversation with one of the bar flies. "what time does the museum open tomorrow"? "it's not open tomorrow Simmo (museum curator) has called in four rural fire trucks to help contain the fires". I must have tried to talk them round, explaining, my genesis came from this place, explained all I knew about it tried to dazzle them with my knowledge of its history. Asked them get on the phone to Simmo who said no. I must have had the longest saddest look on my face, because bar fly said he would try and wrestle the keys off Simmo. But that didn't work either. Nothing to say but that I was disappointed and went silent.
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