I remember when this was still a town. 🙂

It’s amazing how history runs really fast in the outback. From thriving town to ancient relics in a few decades.

I did some work on the Wittenoom reclamation project in Western Australia. We were looking at capping and retaining the remaining asbestos. There were still people living there until last year (they may still be).

Wittenoom

When I lived in Mt Isa there were several ghost towns around. Some with most of the mining superstructure intact, just abandoned.

For example I found this lying out in the bush near the ghost township of Kuridala

That was 1970s. Now it’s in a museum I believe, but a lot of similar stuff got trashed in a revival of leach mining in the area in the 1980s.

The striking feature of the ghost towns is that all the houses get removed, and re-erected in the next mining prospect.

And the sad thing is the graves. Loads of fancy memorials to children dying of fever, women in child birth, young men in mining accidents, and now taken over by the bush.