Glassford

Glassford is an abandoned mining town from early last century, which is now part of Dawes National Park. We have been here several times before, and seen the 2 standing chimneys, Blue Bag mine, boarding house chimney etc, but we had never been able to find the cemetery, where 5 children are buried. On Wed we arrived and had some lunch before setting off up the creek on our search. Within half an hour we had found it! It was both exciting, and a little bit of a let-down, as we then looked at each other and said 'what now' as we had been expecting to spend a couple of days on the search. There is very little to show for the cemetery. Someone has made a stamped sheet-metal plaque mounted on timber, and wired up onto a tree. This has the names of the children and dates of death. Beneath a lot of lantana, I saw a right-angle edge, and when we cleared around it found that is was the concrete memorial plaque for Ethel. We looked at other piles of rocks, but could find no further evidence of burials. I decided that I wanted to get a geotagged photo of each of the remaining visible features at the site, so we walked around and Darryl even took me up the hill to the explosives store, which I hadn't seen before. We also walked up the creek, which is flowing more than we have ever seen, and we sat on the rocks enjoying afternoon tea.

The next morning we walked along a road which went up and up and Darryl thought probably led to more mines. At the top of the hill was a warning sign of open shafts, and although there was signs of disturbance, we couldn't see any – mind you, we didn't spend a lot of time looking, as the grass was pretty long, and you don't want to stumble on one unseen.

Back at camp we had lunch, and I had a nap while Darryl walked along the creek. We then decided to head off, and drove to Kalpower State Forest, before finally stopping at Gaeta Recreational Reserve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glassford_Creek_Smelter_Sites