We visited Mt Garnet over the weekend past and it is a little place on the highway and we stopped and had a coffee and cake at the bakery and found it a very quiet town with little traffic, it is very dry out this way compared to around the coast areas.
This area is popular with the rock hounds and their are a few working sites and finding some good stones which they sell on and pay their way about the country.
This area is popular with the rock hounds and their are a few working sites and finding some good stones which they sell on and pay their way about the country.
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Mount Garnet, a town, is 100 km west of Innisfail and 110 km south-west of Cairns. It is situated in the mineral area known as the Herberton tin field, although copper mining was the industry with which it began. The origin of the name is unrecorded.
In 1883 a copper outcrop was discovered by Albert Vollenweider while searching for horses and he acquired freehold title to the area around the outcrop. John Moffat, the Irvinebank mining entrepreneur, acquired Vollenweider's rights and waited until world copper prices improved. In 1898 Moffat formed the Mount Garnet Freehold Copper and Silver Mining Company and in the months to come test drives and assays gave encouraging results. A reservoir and smelters were installed, in what turned out to be an over-capitalisation. Transport was costly: equipment and coke were brought by camel from Lappa, on the Mareeba to Chillagoe railway. In 1902 a branch line from Lappa to Mount Garnet was opened, mostly before falling prices stopped smelting. Further, the open-cut section of the mine collapsed and a high zinc content in the ore added to the cost of treatment.
In 1883 a copper outcrop was discovered by Albert Vollenweider while searching for horses and he acquired freehold title to the area around the outcrop. John Moffat, the Irvinebank mining entrepreneur, acquired Vollenweider's rights and waited until world copper prices improved. In 1898 Moffat formed the Mount Garnet Freehold Copper and Silver Mining Company and in the months to come test drives and assays gave encouraging results. A reservoir and smelters were installed, in what turned out to be an over-capitalisation. Transport was costly: equipment and coke were brought by camel from Lappa, on the Mareeba to Chillagoe railway. In 1902 a branch line from Lappa to Mount Garnet was opened, mostly before falling prices stopped smelting. Further, the open-cut section of the mine collapsed and a high zinc content in the ore added to the cost of treatment.