Youanmi
Submitted: Thursday, Sep 15, 2011 at 09:54
ThreadID:
89031
Views:
3868
Replies:
3
FollowUps:
4
This Thread has been Archived
franken
Mother In Law is wanting to visit Youanmi gold
mine. Where she spent some time as a 3yr old (1941 or thereabouts) as her dad worked the
mine. Has anyone visited there? Location details? Any news at all about Youanmi?
thanks
Frank
Reply By: Member - Phil B (WA) - Thursday, Sep 15, 2011 at 10:05
Thursday, Sep 15, 2011 at 10:05
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
AnswerID:
465065
Follow Up By: franken - Thursday, Sep 15, 2011 at 10:15
Thursday, Sep 15, 2011 at 10:15
Phil, any facilities for travellers there ?
FollowupID:
739023
Follow Up By: Member - Phil B (WA) - Thursday, Sep 15, 2011 at 10:24
Thursday, Sep 15, 2011 at 10:24
No facilities at all, you'll have to
camp in the bush.
The old Youanmi
homestead has been pushed over and buried.
An old station to the east south east called Youangara (spelling may be wrong) still has station buildings but are in
ruins and some are leaning dangerously. The track in is very rough and washed out.
cheers
FollowupID:
739025
Reply By: Member - Rowdy6032 (WA) - Friday, Sep 16, 2011 at 22:00
Friday, Sep 16, 2011 at 22:00
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.
AnswerID:
465240