Guide to Ravenswood Queensland Australia

Ravenswood is a tiny gold town in dry, rocky hills about 130 kilometres south of Townsville and 90 kilometres east of Charters Towers. A century ago about 5,000 people lived here; today there are a couple of hundred, and the whole town is heritage listed. Two ornate hotels, a handful of shops and public buildings, brick chimneys and rusting machinery stand among the trees, and beside them a large modern mine is working the same ground again. It is one of the most atmospheric places in North Queensland.

Known For

• An entire gold town on the heritage register
• The Imperial and Railway hotels, both still pouring beer
• White Blow, a huge outcrop of white quartz

Unlike many old mining settlements, Ravenswood is not a ghost town or a museum. The pubs trade, the school is open and children ride past the ruins. Much of what was built in timber and iron was carted away when the gold failed, which is why the brick buildings that remain seem so grand and so far apart.

The sealed road from the Flinders Highway at Mingela continues south to the Burdekin Falls Dam, so the town is also a stop on the way to the lake.

Things To Do in Ravenswood

The hotels

The Imperial Hotel, built in 1901, is the showpiece: a two-storey brick pub with a flamboyant facade, a red cedar bar, stained glass and bedrooms furnished much as they were in the boom. The Railway Hotel, of 1902, is nearly as fine. Both serve meals and offer rooms, and a drink on either verandah is the essential Ravenswood experience.

The heritage walk

A signed trail links the main sites. The Court House, with the police station and cells, is now the museum and the best place to begin. Nearby are Thorp’s Building, a general store of 1903, the School of Arts, the ambulance station, the post office and two churches. Around the town are the chimneys, mullock heaps and mill foundations of the old mines.

Mine lookout

A viewing platform looks into the open cut of the present-day gold mine, which has swallowed several of the historic workings. It gives a sense of the scale of modern mining, and of how much gold the old-timers left behind.

White Blow

About four kilometres from town, on the road to the dam, a conservation park protects a mass of milky quartz some 15 metres high, formed around 300 million years ago. A short path circles it.

The cemetery

The old cemetery, on the edge of town, records the hard lives of the field, with the graves of miners, mothers and many children, and a section for the Chinese who made up a large part of the early population.

Burdekin Falls Dam

Eighty kilometres further on by sealed road, the dam holds back Lake Dalrymple, the largest reservoir in Queensland, with a lookout over the spillway, a camping ground and good fishing for barramundi and sooty grunter.

Where To Stay

Both hotels have traditional pub rooms with shared bathrooms, and these are the most memorable places to sleep.

Caravans and campers can use the showgrounds, which have power and showers, and there are a few cabins and cottages in town. The nearest motels are in Charters Towers.

Eat & Drink

The two hotels serve counter lunches and dinners, and a tearoom or general store usually offers coffee, pies and cold drinks during the day. There is no supermarket, so bring supplies if you plan to camp, and fuel up before you leave the highway.

History

Gold was found here in 1868, making Ravenswood the first major goldfield in North Queensland. The easy surface gold was soon won, and the deeper ore, which miners called mundic, was bound up with sulphides and defied the treatment methods of the day. Many left for the new rush at Charters Towers.

The town’s second and greater boom came after 1899, when the mine manager A.L. Wilson raised British capital to reopen the field with new technology. The brick hotels and shops date from those years. A bitter strike in 1912, rising costs and the First World War ended it, and by 1917 the big mines had closed. The town was placed on the heritage register in the 1980s, about the time modern mining returned.

Getting to Ravenswood

From Townsville, take the Flinders Highway to Mingela, 88 kilometres, then turn south for 40 kilometres on a sealed road. From Charters Towers it is about an hour by the same turn-off. There is no public transport.