Rosebud second visit May 2011

I can tell you that I have now well and truly got the bug, I want to see the tunnel that I have heard about.
This time I have Jackys brother Mike Feldman with me, as well as being company on the trip Mike has an avid interest in Australian Flora and being May  a lot of wattle and native bottle brush are in flower.
Now at this time I am still not aware of the fact that I am starting at the most difficult end of this circuit so  Mike and I start at the Mt Frosty end again and anyway Mike has not been in to this mine yet.

Mt Frosty Pit

I am continually amazed at the way the colors of nature are effected by the time of day especially in Western Queensland the wall of the mine pit looks so different in the late morning the last time I came here it was late in the day and the blues and emerald greens were the prominent colors now late morning the dark greens and reds are standing out .

Mt Frosty mine ruins

I took Mike to the other parts of the mine and around the area and took some more photos before we left, looking back at the old mine ruins really gives an insight to how tough some of these miners were, in the summer this would have been a bloody hot place.
After leaving Mt Frosty we explored a few roads but after the mine and a few vehicle wrecks there is not much here.
Our next stop was to be the old mining area about 6k up the road then on to the Maltese Cross area.

Rough and rocky

Well the road had not fixed itself since my last visit and soon we were and  down to about 10kph and in and out of four wheel drive.
The road in the picture on the left is not only rough with many large loose rocks but is very steep so much so that if you were on foot and stumbled you would probably not be able to stop from rolling down the hill, but as we found out later in the day this was the good part of the drive.

Old transport vehicle

We explored a few other likely spots before we got to the area of open shafts and where I had seen the old mine transporter on the last trip.
This is an interesting place but we were trying to find this tunnel and have a look for some Maltese crosses, the Maltese crosses are an unusual crystal they are supposedly named from a story portraying the angels of heaven crying after the crucifixion and the crosses are their tears falling to earth.
It is actually a crystal Staurolite (Iron Aluminium Silicate Hydroxide) with the special properties of forming a  twin cross shape, it also is the official state mineral of the American state of Georgia, well anyway we did not bring any back because we did not know what we were looking for  as I later found out we picked some up and threw them away.
The last trip I saw a road that looked like it had a bit of use but I did not have time to explore, so this time we decided to have a look.
The road ended at an area that looks like it is used as a car park and a bit of camping, so we grabbed our cameras and followed a track that went over a ridge and down into a gully, walking for about 10min we came to a creek which looked like it could be a bit of a swimming hole.

Amazing place

After following the creek up stream we came to this amazing gorge even though it was late morning the colors in the rocks were spectacular.

Colors

We spent a lot of time wandering around here and discovered a rope that someone had hung from a tree higher up in the gorge so it was not so dangerous to climb, when you get to the top the view is breathtaking, no great vistas with mountains and forests in the background just a rugged multicolored rock face with waterholes dotted through and the fantastic colors that are a trademark of this area of western Queensland.

Magic Place

It is not hard to imagine the Ingeniousness people of this area the Kalkadoons making this a special place, this particular place  gives the feeling that at any time you could find Aboriginal art or a group of Kalkadoon elders camped under the shade near the creek.

Changing road conditions

We moved on after spending about an hour at this magic place to where we thought the Maltese Cross area was and then on to the mountains in the distance, there are so many caves and rock formations to stop and explore that it could take days to drive this road.
This is a tough road after you get about 6Klm past Mt frosty there are very few areas that let you safely drive over 15-20 kph it goes from open country to areas that the bush almost covers the road.

We climbed up a long rise that went through stretches of open country to very rough closed in areas that had to be walked before going on, we finally arrived at  an abandoned mine called the WeMcgregor, we did not spend much time there as it was getting late and according to our map we were close to the Tunnel that we had been seeking.
I found out on my next trip that we were actually level with the tunnel but about 200 meters below it, we came to a section of road that was what I would call an extreme climb with loose rocks and washouts and as we did not really know what was on the other side we decided to go back to an area near creek and camp for the night.

After pitching our camp we settled down, opened a couple of beers and were talking about our little excursion when 3 four wheel drives came down from where we had just been, this was a group that told  us they were doing a docco on tracks in western Queensland for National Geographic, they also told us that they had been at the tunnel and were looking down at us when we decided to turn back,  anyway they moved closer to the creek and put up their camp.

long exposure early morning

Early light

Magic of the sun

 Well there is not much more for this trip as usual when you wake up in this magnificent area of Australia you get spectacular colors and views, this alone would make me want to come back but there is still the tunnel and some old towns to explore, so as we were leaving I was planning my next visit.