The historic town of Big Bell lies 27kms west of Cue. Now a ghost town in ruins, in the early 1950s the Big Bell gold mine had 470 men on its payroll, and the town supported over 1000 people. There were 160 houses, a big hotel, a picture theatre, and a dozen shops. Plus there were a further 40 houses, and 130 two-man huts on the mining leases.
The town was first established in 1936. Mine production was suspended during the Second World War so as to free manpower for the war effort leaving only 15 people employed by the mine in 1944. When the war ended the mine returned to full productivity, before ceasing production in 1955.
Now all that remains is the shell of the hotel, the shell of the church, and the concrete pads from a lot of the houses. Chicken wire, barbed wire, broken glass, and pieces of tin litter the ground. The wildflowers are slowly reclaiming the land that was once theirs. The town has been abandoned for as long as I’ve been on this earth. I definitely won’t see another 66 years, and I doubt that at the current rate of decay , Big Bell is likely to either.
Flowers are taking over with wild abandonment.
A billboard on the way out provided a bit more history.
The crumbling remains from the era of Gold, an interesting place to visit when in Cue. I only hope the township of Cue doesn’t follow suit.
Life of Riley - on whatever 
Abandoned buildings always made me sad and think of apocalyptic films. It is a glimpse of a possible future, if we don’t arrest the change in climate.
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Sadly I think you are right. People wont be able to exist in the parts of the world that are already really hot. Those place are likely to return to the dust. And of course the seaside places are going to end up claimed by the sea. The worst of it is, you and I are likely to see it happen. I heard a good Climate Change analogy recently. ‘Climate change is like a bus going down a hill. The brakes work, but no-ones applying them’.
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Oh yes. The analogy seems correct and frightening. The sad and ironic thing about it is they knew the brakes were faulty but the mechanics shrugged it off as it was too much hassle and sometimes too costly to fix.
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The flowers are so lovely.
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My goodness, Big Bell deteriorated very quickly.
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Didn’t it just. At such a rapid rate of decay there’ll be nothing left it soon.
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