• Battery Dam Historical Site

When you’re wandering through the natural beauty of the Craigie Forest, it’s hard to imagine that the now peaceful surrounds were once a noisy, steamy hub of late 1800s gold mining technology.

Known as the Battery Dam, this now-historical site was an area once used to crush and process quartz from mines in the surrounding area. See where the ten head stamp battery was located – heavy stamps were lifted and dropped, thrashing the quartz into sand and allowing gold to be recovered. The site is also home to the Cornish boiler, set into a stone wall, this supplied the steam to the stamp battery.

Cyanide vats and a puddling machine are also an indication that, for a time, this was not the quiet, pleasant place it now is. In addition to old machinery and relics from gold operations, you can now enjoy a walking track and picnic facilities and it’s a great place for prospecting, bushwalking, camping, birdwatching and riding.

Battery Dam is located approximately 3km south of Maryborough off the Maryborough/Majorca Road, enter west at Graves Track and travel about 1km along the track to the site of Battery Dam: map here