Mt Mulligan — David Taylor - Master Jeweller

2nd November 2026

I spent last Sunday night wild camping in the bush as I have every Sunday for months now. The weather was fantastic but it will not be long before the nights are very hot.

That night as I sat around the campfire I decided to do something different on the way home and visit a place that has been on my “go visit” list for years, Mt Mulligan.

I stopped on this very straight section of the road because it was the first clear view I had of part of Mt Mulligan. However the dirt road from Dimbulah has many S bends and sharp corners in it that will soon have the over enthusiastic over shoot a corner. That said it is an enjoyable ride in.

From Dimbulah it is about 60klms of dirt road to Mt Mulligan. Mt Mulligan itself is 18klm long and 400metres high. It was once home to an underground coal mine.

Am memorial to the 72 victims in front of the mine.

An explosion on 19th September 1921 killed all 72 miners underground at the time. This would be the third largest mining tragedy in Australian history.

Mining resumed after the accident but ceased in 1957. By May in 1958 the town was abandoned.

The mine is located on Mt Mulligan Station which I believe was purchased by an overseas investor some years ago and he started a very expensive resort on the station. Prices start from about $1800 a night to stay there. There are signs everywhere stating private property but access to the old mine is still allowed.

There is signage around the old mine and abandoned machinery that lets you know what each area was used for. This is the old power house.

Avery wet track to the mine shaft entrance.

I intended to ride to the mine shaft entrance but we have had a bit of rain and the track leading to it had a fair bit of water over it.

Riding on my own on a loaded bike I dismounted and checked the depth and surface hardness under the water and I would have been fine. I decided however to turn around and head home....... I needed to be at work by late afternoon.

On the way back out I stopped at the old shower facilities for the miners. It appears that it had a bit of a grand entrance back in the day. 72 or so miners and 4 showers.....would have been quite the line up.

It was a strange feeling walking into the showers and imagining the hive of activity that would have been there back in the day. Activity that went to abandoned in less than a year.

I am into the third year of exploring on my motorbike Himi. It gets a really hard life and I do try to take care of it. So far so good with nearly 50000 kilometres on it but I really only expected it to last 3 years of what I had planned or for me to grow into another bike.

It has been a good bike, reliable and cheap to fix when I break it…..which of late I have been doing often with two big offs. Luckily my wife does not read this blog ;)