Rosebud first visit

Well I have been trying to get to this for about a year now.  I first heard about Rosebud Station in 2009, supposedly a property near Cloncurry with abandoned towns, old railways and old tunnels dug through solid rock.
Well as it turns out this is pretty close to the truth.  A chap by the name of Ernest Henry discovered copper in 1867 near  Cloncurry.  Quite a lot of this area was settled by the Chinese who were avid miners and Afghans who brought their Camels to the area and many other nationalities that came to Australia to mine and farm.Those that came to this area would have to be some of the toughest as this area in the winter is hard and in the summer totally unforgiving.
There is a lot of history in this area and on a small scale some mines are still in use today, and thanks to the dry climate around the Curry and Mt Isa some of the old workings are visible today.

Looking over the old mine site

The turn off is about 40K west of Mt Isa - I had a map that a friend Peter Lock found with pretty precise details and good directions, the only problem as I have now discovered is that it was copied from another and the map that Pete got, and started at the end so it was a bit confusing.
 The first place of interest was Mt Frosty which was a fairly recent mine started in about 1970 and produced Gypsum, it appears to have closed in the 80s.  There are some old workings and Machinery still visible.

Old workings 

   The area around this mine is in some rough country but as I found on the next trip with Jackie's brother, Mike Feldman, this is good going compared with the next 12k.
The mine consisted of a large hole in the ground and it looks like a shaft or two going in to the rock, the pit appears to be quite deep and the water looks clear, but there is no run off so I would not like to swim there as there could be animal carcasses or fungi in the water.
The colours of the rock are spectacular especially in the afternoon as he sun goes down

Mine Pit

View from top of workings

The water does get to be used - the Property owner pumps it up for the stock.
The views from the top of the mine are great, and you can still use the steel stairs to the top of the workings and there is a flat area at the top where it looks like a rail line serviced the mine.
There are still signs of the foundations and some old parts of Machinery are lying around, if you go for a drive around the immediate area there is  plenty of evidence of how the area got its name. There are fields of crushed quartz crystals in many parts and when the sun hits them they sparkle like a new frost.
Some old relics of the motoring era of the time are evident if you drive around, one in particular was of interest to me was an old Commer truck. This truck had a two stroke Diesel motor and was a great workhorse.  I learnt to drive in one of these and got my car and truck licence in the same test - or what there was of it.

Commer truck

History

Because I was by myself and did not really know where I was going I was a bit wary of the next section, I had destroyed the sump bash plate on the Triton on another excursion and had to be careful of some rough areas of the track as I had not replaced It yet.
 Well at this time I thought the track was rough,  as Mike and I found  out on the next trip the first 5K's was only very rough, at about this point I came on a section that had a two wheel track off up to a ridge up there I found old open mine shafts, some  very deep and some old vehicles and machinery.

Old transporter

     This old timer looks like it could have been a bus or covered truck I am not sure but the motor looks a bit British, maybe a Morris.
It is about this time I decided to call it a day and head back to the main highway, I had been driving around for about 4 hours and had not seen a sign of anyone else and had not even  got close to the Tunnel that I had came to see. There is always another time to go exploring!