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Published: September 9th 2012
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Savannah Way 3. Adel’s Grove > Gregory Pub > Burketown
Leaving Adel’s Grove we drove back out to join the Lawn Hill Station to Gregory road which would take us past the Zinifex Century Mine. This road was also dirt all the way into Gregory, so we were expecting to meet road trains from the mine and probably have to negotiate a fair amount of corrugation along the way. It was not long before we met the main entrance into the mine and so far the road had been good, it now got better!
Zinifex Century Mine is Australia’s largest producer of zinc concentrate. The Century operations comprise two sites - the mine at Lawn Hill, which was now on our right, and a ship-loading facility at Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Base metals were first discovered in the Lawn Hill region in 1869 and the first mining lease in this area was pegged in 1887, over what is now known as the Silver King vein deposit. The area encompassing these veins, which includes the Century deposit, was proclaimed the Burketown Mining Field in 1899. Exploration titles were granted to CRA in 1987, precisely 100 years
The Gregory Pub
Here is to you, Cheers! after the initial discovery at Silver King, hence the name Century. Century zinc concentrate is highly valued by zinc smelters because of its low iron content. Mining zinc, lead and silver, the mine is an open cut operation project. The mineral concentrate produced from the ore is transported in slurry form via a 304 kilometre underground pipeline to Karumba, where it is dewatered before shipment to Australian and overseas markets. That explained why we did not see any ore carrying road trains on the road and why the road was in great condition. There was of course the constant stream of travellers still to deal with and a few mining vehicles, but overall not what we expected.
Crossing the Gregory River was the first indication that we had arrived at our first stop, the ‘Gregory Pub’. The river is a perennial river being fed by underground spring water just like Lawn Hill Creek (see last Blog entry). A popular camping and fishing spot you have to be here early to get a good riverside campsite. The old Gregory Downs Hotel holds court as the centre of town society, apart from a mining camp, there is not much left here.
The Hotel was originally built to serve passengers on the coach run from Burketown to Mt Isa. At one time there was a Mounted Police post here at Gregory Downs and in World War II, officers at this station won fame when they searched with Doomadgee Aboriginal trackers for the crew of the ditched plane Little Eva. The crew flew out of Iron Range Airport for a bombing run to then-New Guinea and they became disoriented in a tropical storm. Gregory Downs has been a transient town for cattle drovers, gold prospectors and travellers over the years and it is mining and the local stations that ensure this iconic pubs future today. We went and had a beer or two in the pub and checked the banned drinkers register for anyone we may have known that had passed this way and guess what, Ben ‘Cookie’ Roberts was listed (no surprise there!). Gregory Downs Station was one of the first cattle runs in the Gulf Savannah and was one of a range of stations established over the vast monsoonal savannah stretching from Gregory to the Leichhardt River.
From Gregory the road ran directly north towards the Gulf taking us to
A long way from anywhere up here
Mystical isolated place names, Borroloola, Doomadgee, Burketown Burketown, and this place was a surprise. Not expecting much we had planned to call in and get a few things before heading on to free camp along the road. But, after an hour and a half with Frank in the Museum and Historical Society, we decide we needed to stay the night here and see a bit more. Firstly, I must say that coming in to town the first sign you see is ‘Welcome to Burketown, the Barramundi capital of Australia’. Well, let me tell you we have been to at least four other ‘Barramundi Capitals of Australia’ so far, and I reckon we have a few more to go yet! Burketown is on the Albert River, 25klms from the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Established in 1865 it is the Gulf’s oldest town and was its first and largest port facility with companies such as the Dutch East India Traders Company established here. Mounted Police mingled with the immigrants chasing gold and the pastoral pioneers, cattle drovers and cattle ‘duffers’ in this pioneer outpost before a number of tragedy’s struck. In 1866 ‘Gulf Fever’ (Malaria) decimated the town and forced its evacuation until re-establishment in 1882 and
Burketown
Museum, a great place to start your tour of the town. then the river silted up and changed its course effectively putting Burketown, the Port for the Gulf , on an un-navigable watercourse. Today Burketown survives mostly as a service centre for the Pastoral industry, and yes, many ‘southerners’ migrate to here as a base for chasing Barra during the dry season.
Burketown is also the best place in the world to witness the phenomenon of the ‘Morning Glory’, stay with me here guys! Morning Glory Clouds are a peculiar cloud formation that occurs usually between September and November. In fact it is only one of two places in the world where this occurs. They are tubular cloud formations that roll out of the Gulf in the early morning, given the right conditions which I think involves humidity and winds, often in lines of three or four formations and extending from horizon to horizon. They don’t happen often, last year (2011), only 11 of these phenomena occurred. And guess what, yes, one occurred the morning we were there, the first in 2012! I don’t think it was the best ‘example’ of a Morning Glory but we did see it as you will see from the photos. The cloud formations when
Burketown
Main street. The blue tarp on left corner marks the spot where the iconic Burketown Pub was before it burnt down recently. It will be rebuilt, but Ben you are still banned! perfect are smooth and circular with no imperfections, ours was a bit ‘fluffy’ but hey, amazing anyway. Just before these things roll over head, you experience a reasonably strong wind as well. And then it is gone rolling on inland over the savannah, just brilliant.
So our stopover in Burketown was a great move and anyone passing through should stop and take the time to go through the museum, and we had a Morning Glory here as well, brilliant!
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Brian
non-member comment
Burketown
Yup Google has been to Burketown. Apparently these "Morning Glories" are much sought after by gliders and glides of 500kms have been known, seems strange to me. Population of 173 in the 2006 census. The Burketown pub was burnt down (after 90+years) in March 2012. Full of information from my UK based armchair!!!! Keep up the good work the pictures are top of the range. Brian