Old Basalt mine at South Woy Woy - INFO WANTED ! - Woy Woy Local History - Local Discussions - Woy Woy Community Message Boards - Message Board - Yuku

RSS
Email

0 Kudo

<< Previous Topic Next Topic >>

Old Basalt mine at South Woy Woy - INFO WANTED !

Author	Comment
Woy Woy Steve	Old Basalt mine at South Woy Woy - INFO WANTED !		Lead	[-]
Posts: 450 02/06/08 02:23:55	Tags : None In the 1920's a company( Basalt Quarries Ltd ) began to mine basalt ( blue metal ) in the area now used as the local landfill depot ( the tip ) I remember seeing the remains of the mining eqipment high on the hill on the left side of the tip in it's early days of use , some parts of it are still there ( crusher chute ) but was was really fascinating was the light gauge railway that was built to ferry the blue metal to a siding at the tunnel mouth of Woy Woy tunnel. It ran through the bush around the hills and over 2 impressive trestle bridges reamins of which are visible today as well as some old tracks and a rail trolley overturned in the bush , also nearby there is a mysterious semi circular stone wall set into the ground it seems as if something was camped here for some time - maybe the remains of a well established navvie camp from the tunnel building days. I will being posting a full story on woy-woy.com once I have read up some more on the subject. I would also appreciate any input on this subject , just leave your info here or contact me by email Cheers ! www.woy-woy.com
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote
Woy Woy Steve	Basalt Railway Trek - as posted at www.woy-woy.net	#1	[url]	[-]
Posts: 436 07/13/08 14:00:58	I was going to use my mum's photo's for this story but they are old colour photo's from 1976 ( before Gwen Dundon's photos ) and are not really scanable ( did I just invent a new word ? ) So I decided to go get some updated digi pics and set off on a small hike up Woy Woy Tip last Sunday morning. Packed a small pack with supplies : water , map , mobile phone , knife , 2 x Chomps ( sugar hits ) , body parts bag ( hey you don't know what you may find ) , digital camera and a lighter. Headed to Woy Woy tip and parked outside of gates and notified garbage guy at the weighbridge of my intentions and possible return time , then set off up the track to Dillions Farm , once you hit the first corner just go along a bit and look over the right side and start looking for the raised soil that was the foundation for the small gauge railway that ran from the top of the tip ( the old loco shed site is now buried under tonnes of landfill ) Once you are on this raised path you will get familiar with it's shape and you will hit the first creek crossing soon after , here it's just a small bridge with some retaining stones still there and a concrete foundation , also some nice red yabbies and some kind of lizard that can hold it's breath longer than my patience ! About 30 metres further through some really dense and scratchy bushes you will come to the best bit which is the big trestle bridge that crosses a creek , here there are several foundation blocks and 2 large piers made of concrete spanning across the sandstone creek bed ( you can see this from Google Earth ) I then climbed up the other side and continued to follow the raised path again through some spectacular bushland as it wound its way round the mountain curves. Another couple of small creek crossings and after about 15 minutes I was at the end of the top line at the crusher chute site , here you can see the old remains of the crusher chute which ran down a 45 degree slope to the crusher bin just near the sewerage treatment works ponds , I bit the bullet and headed down the steep incline ( knowing I had to come back up argh ) and checked out the crusher bin site , the cutting for the lower line and the other big trestle bridge site , here it is thick with lantana so take a machete ! As I was heading back I went down a different path and found the last remaining piece of rolling stock left , an old skip car - the same one my mum had pics of , so a took a few piccies and headed back up that bloody hill ! Then off to part 2 of the mission - to investigate an alleged ammo dump from WW2 that the NPWS mention in a tour brochure , heading down and across another valley I came to the top of the tunnel and began to work my way down when I came round a corner into a large cave on the hill overlooking the railway line, the first thing I see is an army ammunition box ! geez talk about bingo I thinks before seeing the rest of the cave contents - it was obviously an old hobo's home and from the items around I'd say he was living there around 10 years ago, the ammo box was from 1953 and had a newspaper from 1998 in side so that discounted it being WW2 vintage , I scratched around in the dirt on the floor and found a Halfpenny from bloody 1942 to confuse things even more ! I then set off to look at the intended area , a small tunnel directly above Woy Woy Tunnel , here I took more pics to send off to Pete from Ozatwar.com who I annoy every now and again and who was interested in seeing it as there were actual plans to blow certain tunnels and bridges in WW2 if the Japs ever landed. By now the old legs were getting like jelly so I headed back along my original path and stopped for a breather at the first trestle bridge , sat in the creek with my feet in the ice cold water and had a Chomp , filled my water bottle up with new cold spring water and hit the scrubby bit on the way back , all the time being circled by evil looking crows I was back by about 1.30 so it was about a 5 hour journey and without the tunnel detour you could just do the railway walk in under 3 hours if you wanted to , just be careful to get out before they shut the tip gates at 4pm ! Pete from Ozatwar has knocked this page up on the Ammo Dump www.woy-woy.com
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote
coastbloke		#2	[url]	[-]
Posts: 13 07/14/08 16:54:25	Good stuff Steve, pretty interesting report there.. Just about the hobo cave. Might explain the below...I will provide the link, but paste the relevant piece.. http://yowiehunters.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1140&Itemid=132 I was high in the mountains , about 1.5 ks away from Wondabyne Trig , at this area witch is a spot elevation , and around about 930. I felt guilty that I had blown off the disco for the camping trip , so me and my mates left the camp site , and ventured into town it would have been a startling site to see about 6 youths dressed in full camouflage and heading to the disco to greet her , in the end we got there as the disco finished , and I just missed her , but I ran into my best mate who loved the bush and camping as much as I did and he decided to grab his stuff and join us. We walked in the darkness up the windy road to the tip , which ultimately led to the fire trail which led to the camping site and as we got close to the garbage tip , we seen a small fire burning up on the tip , which we thought was a little strange , but we just figured that the tip staff had a controlled burn to eliminate some of the garbage. Well we then looked up at the hill and saw a very tall bloke with longish hair stand up and all we could see was his silhouette as it was very dark , it appeared that he was wearing raggy torn up clothing , but we couldn't really see that well as he was between us and this fire.. now this is the strange part , this thing looked down at us from the hill , as if almost he could smell us , and then it crouched down and started bashing out the fire with its bear hands , I was pretty scared as were the blokes I was with so we stayed behind the cover of a few shrubs next to the trail so he couldn't see us , but we could still see what he was doing , any way after he bashed out the fire he picked up a stick that was still red and like a torch and run toward the hill in the opposite direction from us , at such an incredible speed , it was unbelievable , but it happened , with in a few seconds he was gone . We just though it must have been a mad man who was living in the hills scavenging from the tip , but to bash out a fire with his bare hands was something out of the ordinary , plus the speed he ran at , well a bit to fast for me and to run blindly up hill just smashing through the bush . well we were glad he didn't run toward us.
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote
Woy Woy Steve	hobo man	#3	[url]	[-]
Posts: 437 07/16/08 01:12:00	Interesting article there , I reckon they saw one of the many people who live in the bush on the outskirts of town , the unemployed and homeless and back in the 80's ex vietnam vets were some of the people supposedly living in caves around Woy Woy Bay. I've spent a few nights camped up in the hills myself and have never heard or seen of any yowie type sightings in my 43 years here , it can get spooky up there late at night and theres lots of freaky noises to scare the %%$% out of you for sure. The cave I visited even had a smaller cave devoted to scrap metal collecting with bits of aluminium and copper stuffed into small ledges , how this individual intended to get the scrap to the scrap dealer I don't know it would be quite a mission on foot ! www.woy-woy.com
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote

<< Previous Topic Next Topic >>

Quick Reply