Forsayth
A service centre for road transport and regional tourism, Forsayth is the terminus of the Etheridge Railway, built by the Chillagoe Railway and Mining Company. It reached Forsayth in 1911. It is now serviced by a weekly, privately operated, tourist train, The Savannahlander. When gold was first discovered at Forsayth in 1871 the area was named Finnigans Camp (the name of the discoverer), but the name changed to Charleston within a year. By the 1890s there were three towns within a few kilometres of each other: West Charleston (surveyed 1885), Charleston (surveyed 1891) and Charleston North (surveyed 1896). Another town, Castleton (1890) was about 10 km south.
In 2004 the Ewamian people surrendered native title over the far northern Queensland townships of Einasleigh, Forsayth, Mt Surprise and Georgetown. In return, they received access to their traditional country through three reserves along with land and housing in Georgetown.
Where is it?: 415 km west of Cairns; 40 km south of Georgetown; 128km southeast of Mt Surprise via Einasleigh.
Ride The Savannahlander: a truly unique railway journey that travels all the way from Cairns to Forsayth, 423 kilometres away, over two days. Affectionately known as 'The Silver Bullet', the 1960's Savannahlander is one of the world's greatest rail experiences, offering passengers the opportunity to discover the outback in a very unique and comfortable way.
Sometimes history is more bizarre than fiction. Forsayth was once paved in gold in a manner of speaking. Part of the Etheridge Goldfield, this area was known as Poor Man's Goldfield as a prospector did not need expensive equipment to search for gold. Nugget gold was literally found on the ground.
Many of the towns within this goldfield rose and fell quickly, strikes were short-lived with always the promise of another fortune. Temporary corrugated iron buildings were pulled down and transported by wagon to the new instant town. The once-private rail link from Chillagoe to Forsayth assured the town's permanency. The historic link is now part of the Savannahlander rail journey.
The Etheridge goldfield has never been worked out. Modern day prospectors armed with metal detectors still search for specimens such as coloured topaz, agates, sapphires, smoky quartz and other precious stones as well as nuggets of gold. A permit is required for any form of fossicking.
Relics of the famous gold rush days can still be found throughout the district and the settlements of Mount Surprise, Einasleigh, and Forsayth, together with Georgetown, remain a fossickers dream.
Kidston (110 km south east): The Kidston Gold Mine, the largest open cut gold mine in Australia, can be visited. The Kidston Battery, complete with crushers, is a historic industrial relic from the 1800s when Kidston was a prosperous gold mining town. The battery is located near the town.
Einasleigh (64 km east): on the old Chillagoe to Forsayth railway line, now the Cairns to Forsayth railway. Once a copper mining town, it is set among some unusual scenery with flat top hills, or mesas, that rise out of the grasslands. Across from the Einasleigh Hotel, is the spectacular Copperfield Gorge with sheer walls dropping into the sandy river bottom. This area is the south eastern boundary of the Undara lava field and here the river has cut through a lava fissure giving the visitor another aspect of the lava flow.
Copperfield Gorge, just a few hundred metres from the Einasleigh Hotel, was formed when the Copperfield River eroded a channel through a sheet of basalt laid down as lava many years ago. Basalt is the dark grey rock on both sides of the gorge.
Cobbold Gorge is located within the rugged sandstone formations that dominate the local area 50 km from Geogetown. This stunning gorge is extremely narrow, closing to a mere two meters wide in places, with spectacular 30 metre cliffs on either side. The Cobbold Gorge area is home to a diverse range of wildlife. Native fish abound in these waters, and of course, the freshwater or johnstone river crocodiles. A large variety of birds frequent the lower waterhole.
Originally known as Finnigan's Camp after the prospector who discovered gold nearby in 1871, within a year the settlement had become Charleston township, and it continued to grow despite near desertion when its inhabitants rushed to the Palmer River Goldfield in 1874 and to the Hodgkinson in 1876. After a slump in the mid-1880s the township was again a flourishing centre by the mid-1890s, having five hotels, a school and a court of petty sessions.
By the late 1890s base metal prices were high: a number of promising copper deposits were opened up in the Etheridge district at Charleston, Einasleigh and Ortona, and several were acquired by a subsidiary of the Chillagoe Company. This led the company to commence a rail link in 1907 from Almaden to Einasleigh and the Charleston area, which was completed in January 1910. The Etheridge Railway terminated at a new settlement on the other side of the Delaney River. First known as New Charleston, it was renamed Forsayth after the railways commissioner, James Forsayth Thallon. During the year, all the buildings in Charleston, including the police station and the school, which had previously been at Gilberton, were moved across the Delaney River to Forsayth.
New buildings and services followed the opening of the railway; these included a hospital, a new court house and a new school built in 1912, and a public hall built two years later. In 1914 the Chillagoe Smelters were shut down and the town's importance as an ore-loading facility and centre for miners and their families declined as mining activity in the area was scaled back.
Forsayth remained the railhead for transport to the west, although plans in the 1930s to extend the railway to connect to the Croydon line did not proceed. From the 1980s, renewed mining activity in the area and increased livestock traffic revived the town.
