Yerranderie to Hill End. New South Wales.

David & Helen Wenzlick.

Over the New Year we decided to hook up the camper trailer and head south from Bribie Is. to visit relatives south of Sydney and armed with Ron & Viv Moon's new book of " Discover Australia 4 W D " . As we were staying only 40 km from the trip in the book on page 100 starting from Mittagong to Hill End via Yerranderie ghost town, that was naturally the way to travel back as we had over a week to get back home.
Mittagong to Wombeyan Caves travels west for about 70 kms of very narrow notoriously dangerous but with stunning scenery road to the Caves for a stop and then heads north for 28 kms to Limeburners Flats. Now the 4 wheel driving really starts as we turn east on the very little used 4wd track that hooks up with the road to the old silver mining ghost town of Yerranderie 40 odd k's up in the Blue Mountains National Park. The climb from the Limeburners creek is very steep and with washed out ruts made towing the camper trailer quite exciting in places .The road into the old silver town will soon be cut off as the Sydney Water Catchment for the dam slowly floods and blocks off the only road in. There is an air strip that is used by NP & Water board that will get tourist in and out as they are starting to restore parts of the old town that hasn't been eaten away by white ants or rotted into the ground .We camped at the ghost town that was populated with over 2000 people in the 1870's in a very nice spot with fireplaces and showers and lots of wild life and old mining equipment .The only other human we saw was the ranger who arrived for about 5 mins to pay him the camping fee and a guided tour of the old mines which he was coming back to do in a couple of hours and then vanished into thin air never to be seen again . ( It is a ghost town after all ) .We had to do our own self guided mine tour and had a good wonder around the town and old grave yard etc. Lots of very interesting history and well worth the visit.
After heading back out and onto the road north for 100 k's through Oberon and across the Great Western Hwy just east of Bathurst to get onto the old Bridal Track that was cut into the hills and follows the Macquarie River and is very narrow,windy and steep and in places has passing bays to squeeze into if you meet another car. It was used in 1870's by the gold miners to pack horse supplies and mining equipment for about 67 k's to old gold mining town of Hill End. Over the years the track had been widened for coaches and now on a good day can now be used by 4wd only and not recommended for trailers. Any way we made it with our trailer ok,,just makes it more interesting 4 wheeling . In it's time it must have been a masterpiece of track building.
Hill End is a gold mine ghost town from the 1870's and used to have 2500 pop. Plus 1000's of miners and 52 pubs but now only has one that has survived the times so we had to rush in for the odd ale to make it worth saving. They have restored quite a few of the old buildings that have survived time and termites with photos in the main streets of a lot of the old shops and things as they were and the old hospital is now a museum (Sound familiar?) .We did all the usual touristy things with a bit of gold panning etc. I think some body had already found the gold I was looking for? After spending a few days there we headed north following as many dotted lines on the map to stay off the main roads till we got back over the QLD boarder and then headed back to Bribie.
The return trip was about 3000 Kms and well worth it as we saw country and towns that would normally be bypassed.
Have included a few of the many photos we took on the trip but unfortunately as usual don't do Justice to the real thing.