Close to home #12 Flagstaff Hill
It’s always lovely to go on a long holiday to a far flung destination. There are times, however, when it’s not convenient or cost effective and a staycation closer to home is the way to go. The destinations in this series of posts are all just a few hours’ drive from our home. They’re easy to get to, there’s plenty to see and do and at the end of the holiday we’re home again in no time.
At the north western end of Isla Gorge National Park in central Queensland, there is a remarkable example of mid 19th century engineering – an isolated time capsule preserved in the bush. To reach it, we turned off the highway and headed towards Flagstaff Road. Wide, flat and unsealed, the road goes through private cattle properties. Several times we had to slow down as we crossed cattle grids and passed by stock grazing at the side of the road.
Ahead in the distance, the Dawson Range rose abruptly out of the dusty plain.
Just inside the national park boundary at the top of the range, a narrow walking track led through the bush to the remnants of a hand-made road.
Constructed in the 1860s, the road was used to transport wool from the western town of Roma to the coastal port at Rockhampton. For this 150 metre section up the range, massive slabs of rock were cut by hand from boulders on the site. No cement was used to lay the pavers; they were shaped to fit neatly together, creating a firm surface on the steep slope. Hand-made culverts drained rain water away, preventing erosion and conserving the area. Six men took six months to build the paved road at a cost of £200.
In the early days, bullock teams pulled massive drays loaded with wool on the journey east and returned with supplies for those living in the remote west of the state. The bullockies who managed the teams were highly skilled in the tricky maneuvers needed to reach the top of the hill.
The road was used until the 1930s but, when other sealed roads made the westward journey easier, most traffic was diverted. Today the hand-paved road up Flagstaff Hill lies hidden in the bush, a silent tribute to the men who laboured to build it.
Lovely story. I grew up around there and it was nice to revisit it through your eyes.
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I’m glad you enjoyed seeing it all again.
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My goodness that must have taken some effort!
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It would have been a mammoth job. It is such an isolated area now, let alone in the 1860s. We were astounded by how hard it must have been.
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I am truly amazed by so many things built in times when there was no mechanical help. I guess lives were cheap and labour plenty.
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I think in this case the work wasn’t dangerous, just hard. It would have been very hot up there.
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What a work of art the road is! It looks hardly wide enough for the bullock wagons though.
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Where the road curved it was much wider. The teams and drays were quite long but not so wide so the rest of the road would have been okay. A lot of skill went into building the road, that’s for sure.
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I bet that was hard work! It’s great that it has survived.
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I can’t imagine how hard it was cutting the stones and lifting them into place. And for most of the year daytime temperatures are in the high 20s to high 30s.
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Wow what an amazing road, fabulous that it is still there to see.
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The skill of the builders ensured its survival. It was great to see it.
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You can really imagine what it would have been like! Some places are easier to do that than others I find too 🙂
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It would have been so hot in summer.
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Sometimes we think staying closer to home is a great alternative. I do love travelling but it’s also great to explore nearby! What a great find – must have been interesting to walk along the road which has seen so much hard work and toil
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We didn’t know about the road until we visited Isla Gorge so it was a bonus.
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Our ancestors were strong, creative folks. ‘Hand-paved road’ says it all. 🙂
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It’s great to see it is still there. Says a lot for their skills.
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How interesting about the bullockies and their maneuvers to get up that road. 🙂
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In many of our country towns, the main streets are very wide. That was to accommodate the turning circle of the bullock teams. Now they have beautiful streets with trees down the centre.
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How fascinating to be able to explore like this close to home. An extraordinary effort to create this all those years ago!
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It’s nice not to endure a long flight for a change. We plan to do more travel in our own backyard in the next year. 🙂
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I love the story. The road looks interesting.
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Thank you, Matti. It was interesting to visit. We hadn’t seen this kind of road before. It was in a beautiful bushland setting too.
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Such a remarkable scenery, Carol. Flagstaff Hill seems astonishing. Is it possible to camp there?
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It’s a great place to visit. You can camp there but it’s basic. There are bush toilets but no other amenities and no power. There were people with caravans and tents when we were there and the campground goes along the ridge before the carpark. It would be a very peaceful place to stay but apart from this walk there’s nothing else to do there. Nice though if you just a couple of very quiet days. We did have phone reception which was a bonus. 🙂
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I got a real sense of adventuring into the bush… What a lot of hard work went into that road – it reminds me a bit of the roads that the Romans built, but they had more labourers of course. 🙂
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The funny thing about that particular adventure was at the town we were staying in we had no phone reception, but out there in the middle of the bush where it was so isolated, we were able to catch on messages, social media and even make a phone call. The labourers who made the road didn’t have that luxury! 🙂
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How odd that it worked that way – you must have been relieved to get out into the middle of the bush to keep in touch!
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Our phones went crazy with messages coming through. There’s no rhyme or reason about where you’ll get phone reception once you’re out of the cities and towns.
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I remember sitting on a coach in the middle of nowhere in Iceland as we toured round, and we had an excellent internet signal – but at our own house which is, allegedly, in the middle of somewhere we sometimes struggle to get a reliable mobile phone signal and fast internet!
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