Dough Town Track July 2012
Bits of an old miners track that linked Humphreys Gully to Dough Town & then carried on to Milltown still survive. From the picture you can see the old track formation though it is rather overgrown. This is understandable as it is probably over a century since it last had any maintenance. Back in the early 1880's Dough Town was a thriving mining camp of over two hundred men. Most of the men who lived there were involved in building a big water race to deliver water to sluicing claims.
Once the water race was completed Dough Town faded away. Very little remains of the town today. Just the odd old bottle and the remnants of a bakers oven or forge?
On the other hand some bits of the track & sections of the water race are well preserved.
Comments
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glennj I've been back in this area again following more of the horse track and water race. The engineering accomplishments of the old timers is amazing. With rudimentary gear they've constructed major tunnels, cuttings, causeways, benching and dams. Wooden trestles supporting aquaduct fluming (now collapsed & largely rotted away) spanned gullies and swampy areas where ditching was impractical.
Last trip I picked up an early telegraph insulator beside the track just west of Dough Town and have seen others further up the track beyond Milltown almost as far as Prices Creek. It appears that the telegraph line ran beside the track for over 20km's but there is little sign of it these days as most of the gear was recycled after the race fell into disuse.
Some of the insulators rather than being on cross arms atop poles were attached to gudgeons hammered about 3-4m up live trees. A smattering of these still exist near Dough Town but some are almost totally intergrown into the trees now.
4 August 2012
ID 8113
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