Youanmi

Google is your friend...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youanmi_Gold_Mine

http://www.apexminerals.com/projects_gold_youanmi.php

Hi Frank,

There's nothing left there buildings wise. Until a few years ago you could see the outlines of the streets by seeing rows and rows of Kurrajong trees.

When I visited there last year a gold mine had reopened and most of the area where the townsite was is within the mining lease and is no go.

The cemetery to the west of the old town is worth a visit though.

In case you are not aware, there is a book on Youanmi - available from Hesperian Press - its called
Youanmi A Story of Murchison Gold by Jean Hooper. Youanmi was a goldfield's town that grew from nothing in the desert, flowered briefly and died. This book tells the history of the town, its mines and its people.

cheers

Hi

We were there a couple of weeks ago. Don`t know if I can tell you anything that hasn't already been said.

They had some good historic photo's of the Youanmi townsite at the Sandstone Museum/info Centre. The townsite was quite large.

We went that way from Sandstone down the Paynes Find Road. A good gravel road but we didn't see anybody until we were nearly at Paynes Find, wouldn't want to break down out there.

To get to Youanmi you go down the Lake Barlee Rd about 4kms. It is pretty rough. Before Youanmi Village (mine camp), on a sharp bend, were a few tracks that we thought may have been the old townsite. No signs anywhere to indicate anything.

When we came to the Village turnoff the road was pretty bad and we thought
that you had to follow the good road into the village. Drove in, appeared deserted and the road didn't go through. From what we could see there was only about 6 dongas but could have been more further back.

We went back to the turnoff and followed the Lake Barlee Rd. It was pretty rough and it followed the fenceline alongside a large tailings dump. No sign of any recent activity but could have been anything behind the tailings dump.

The road on the other side of the dump was washed out in places but not as corrugated as earlier. We followed it down about 10kms looking at good displays of wildflowers and went back.

As we drove out we saw a bloke that appeared to be a caretaker going into the gate to the mine site who gave us a wave.

We were towing a small offroad van and I was feeling crook after picking up a bug in Kal so we didn't look any further. We would have liked to have seen the cemetery.

Not really anything there and signs telling you to keep out.