Gold Mines/ Brisbane North

I’m going to cover a couple of gold mines to the north of Brisbane, Dayboro to Kilcoy to be exact. These gold mines seem to have been worked in the early 1900’s, up to the start of World War 1. The government of the time came up with a novel way to get the miners out of the mines and into the army… drop the price of gold, and increase the costs of licences and fees untill you can’t make a wage. But the army was paying good money. So all the miners abandoned their claims and joined up. Hay presto, the government gains all the gold leases back. Now how to keep control of all that gold… just make all the gold bearing ground National Parks, and that is what they did.

The first mines I’m going to talk about are at Dayboro, just north of Brisbane. Finding any information about gold mines is hard to do, ask people about the subject, and you get bombarded with questions that clearly show they have no knowledge of what you are asking. Or a kind of weird look comes over them, kind of like they are looking at some sort of strange insect, and they can’t tell if it’s dangerous or not. Here is a Google Earth image of the “Dayboro Talc-Asbestos Prospect”, located on Robertson Road South.

This site can be clearly seen to be an open-cut mine, the erosion lines visible in the image. Several mine sites have been worked on creeks in the area, Rush Creek on the way into Dayboro has one such site.  Another open-cut type mining operation. This site is at the head waters of “rush creek”, and is on private property. Permission is required to venture onto private land, how would you like to walk out your back door, and find someone wandering around in your yard. This           mine site goes by a designation number because it was not named “Unnamed 859929”. Other mines in the area were, “Unnamed 710872” on Laceys Creek, and “Bodalla & Cananea Mines”, on Reedy Creek.

This is an extract from “Gold and Ghosts”, by D.W.De Havelland.  The Wyangy Creek and Perseverance prospects have left few records. The only information I have located for the former is, that on 10 September 1914, a sample of gold-bearing ore was submitted to the Department of Mines from the area shown on the map. In respect to the Perseverance, the only record is derived from Dunstan’s Queensland Mineral Index, which states:- “In quartz reef. Perseverance Mine, Nerum Creek, 6 miles S.W. of Woodford, 40 miles N.N.W. of Brisbane. Co. Stanley (ante). Ref. G.S.M. “The latter abbreviation stands for Queensland Geological Survey Museum. A collection that no longer appears to exist in the same format as when Dunstan compiled his index. Good Luck! That was written in 1995, and I will also wish you good luck in finding out anything about these mines. You will have to travel there yourself, and explore in person.

This map shows the location of Wyangy Creek and Perseverance Prospect.

Two more gold mines remain in this area to be covered, they are located between Woodford and Kilcoy. Both are off The D’aguilar Highway. “Dulcie” gold mine is located on Stoney Creek Road, about 3-3.5km from the highway, on the left side of the road, after crossing Stoney Creek. The mine workings are visible from the road as a raised area with timbers spaced across the rise in squares. Some stone piles are also visible on the diggings.

The mine site is on the brown mark, between the two trees, on the left of the road.

Scrubby Creek Prospect gold mine is a couple of kilometres further along the highway towards Kilcoy, you will pass over Scrubby Creek on the road. The whole area is alluvial ground and may produce a few specks of gold. Don’t forget you need a fossicking licence in Queensland to search for gold.