Richmond Qeensland a quiet town about 550k west of Townsville, the area is largely made up of Cattle and not so much sheep.
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| Finish line Richmond Race track |
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Grandstand at Richmond Race track |
Richmond has been a place that we have visited many times since coming to North Queensland over 35 years ago. After passing through the town many itmes I attended the Richmond Field days at the Race course, This is a great social event as well as being a great place to do Business.
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| Fossil display |
Some of the other attractions in this area is the Fossil festival which will be held in 2011 in May, this should be a great weekend, as Richmond is well known for its displays of the ancient fossils that are found in the area.
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| Federal Palace Hotel |
One of the many things that always amaze me in these outback towns is the old and historic buildings that have survived especially the hotels, unfortunately there is only one of the old hotels left in Richmond as the Old Mud Hut hotel was destroyed by fire as so many are, a few years ago and the Federal Palace hotel is the only one left, the old Mud Hut was replaced by a new structure and even though the atmosphere of the old style Pub is missing it is still a great place to have a quiet beer or a feed as is The Fed.
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| Lake Fred Tritton |
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| Local kids at the water park |
One of the things that the locals have done well is to build their lake, water for this lake is pumped from the Flinders river which is one of the longest rivers in Australia and this fabulous water park has helped transform this town.
Many water sports are now possible as well the lake has been stocked with fish, a lot of towns and cities start up these projects and they just sit unused but not in Richmond, there is always activity around the water park day and night.
The lake is named after a local identity, Fred Tritton, Fred was a larger than life character in every sense of the word, I met Fred a few times and stayed at the family property on a couple of visits to the field days, I do not think that there would be much that this man would not have a crack at, he was good for the town and I think the lake is well named.
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| Old building Richmond |
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| Abandoned home |
As I said at the start these old western towns are full of history and the architecture of the past remains in many froms, foom old hotels to the buildings that were used for business to some old remnants of the types of houses that the western pioneers lived in.
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| Corrigated iron home |
Western has its own style of living very practical homes and business buildings from the older style right through to the modern, there are many variations of this in Richmond and I have included a few from our collection, more are available on our web site
http://www.photography-village.com/
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| CWA house |
Like most small western towns Richmond has its share of social meeting places for locals, like the Local branch's of the CWA and RSL as well as a well kept Bowls club.
I think that at the moment this area is as green as I have seen it at this time of the year there has been rain most of the way out this trip and I have seen some good size storms brewing in the distance and all the creeks are flowing.
Well I am moving on tonight to a place called Rosebud Station where I hope to photograph some of the left over artifacts from an mining area that was dominated by the Chinese, these people were some of the most inovative miners in their time, I am looking forward to the adventure.
