Kajabbi and Dobbyn.

Hi all, well it has been some time since I have done anything on the blog so I thought I'd better start doing something again. This blog will be about the old mining towns of Kajabbi and Dobbyn to the north -west of Cloncurry. Copper was discovered at Mount Cuthbert in the early 1900's and they decided to build a branch railway line to the area to service the new mine.  the railway was completed in 1916. En route it passed through the town of Kajabbi and rail traffic was heavy, rail supplied everything to the towns and mining industries of the area including firewood to feed the  copper smelter at Mount Cuthbert and copper was railed to the east coast of Queensland. By the early 1920's the copper price had collapsed and the mining in the area had stopped, the branch line from Kajabbi to Dobbyn via Mount Cuthbert was closed in 1949. Kajabbi remained as the rail head and beef cattle were railed from there until the late 1980's and finally closed to Cloncurry in 1994.  Mining recommenced at Mt Cuthbert in 2009 and continues to this day mining copper.


The Kalkadoon Hotel at Kajabbi.

The pub was opened in 1928 and closed in 2009.

There is not much left in Kajabbi just a few houses, but they have this cracker of an airstrip.

The next stop on the trip was really the focus of the journey. A year after the line to Mt Cuthbert was operating a branch was opened 33km to Dobbyn to service mines in the area. Dobbyn was a small town servicing its mine and also the mine at Mt Oxide not far away.  Dobbyn had two stores, hotel, post office, police station and a school. The area was littered with working mines at the time, but as with Mt Cuthbert they all declined quickly in the 1920's. Dobbyn remained operational after the demise of the mines as the railhead for Burketown and the rest of the Gulf transporting  mainly cattle to Cloncurry and the coast, the line closed in 1961, not much remains today.

 





Steam driven winch

The original mining here was all underground, a company open cut this in the 1980's.

Small graveyard.

 



Dobbyn Poppet Head was originally from Charters Towers.

Remnants of the old rail bridge over Coppermine Creek.

 Remains of an old store.

 Out house.

Was a residence.

Leaving Dobbyn was hard because of all the interesting things lying around the area, I could have spent the whole day fossicking around there but I had another destination to explore, so it was off to Lake Julius.

Lake Julius was formed by daming the Leichhardt River in 1976 to form the lake which when full holds as much water as Sydney Harbour. The dam was constructed in the river valley to supply water to the Mt Isa mines and Mary Kathleen when it was operational.  It now supplies water for Ernest Henry mine in Cloncurry and also supplements that towns water supply via a 100km pipeline in times of drought. It is a pity that you can't camp at the dam anymore, but day trippers can enjoy boating and fishing there still.

 

 

The storage area is long narrow and very deep.

 

 

The dam wall is a arch and buttress design and is quite unique.

 

Leichhardt River bed.

 

On the way home to Cloncurry via the Lake Julius- Kajabbi road, I wanted to take a short side trip to have a look at East Leichhardt Falls. I didn't think these very small falls would be flowing because of the severe drought we were experiencing, but I did think there might be just a little bit of water there. The track in was pretty rugged and when there is water here it is a popular swimming hole.

This was all I found. The water is usually flowing over those rocks.

 

Well it was starting to get late in the day so I headed for home about 100km from here, I did approximately 400km,200 or so on dirt roads and thoroughly enjoyed the day. Next up I'll head back up the gulf country to Normanton and a trip on The Gulflander.