Mary Kathleen Townview, Queensland, Australia
By xr400sim on 13-Mar-10. Waypoint GC259HC

Catching up on some late, very late and extremely late logs (400 in all)

I would like to thank xr400sim for placing this cache. I always enjoy getting out and about to view this great country of ours and caching allows me to do that. Once at GZ, I sometimes find the cache quickly but sometimes it takes awhile to sus out the well camouflaged hide. Once found, log is signed and the cache is rehidden as found.

Once again thanks xr400sim.

[font=Comic Sans MS]Hi there xr400sim. We found your cache "Mary Kathleen" at 10:42:00 AM today. This cache makes our find count 11117.
[Blue]
We had a short caching day today, just picking up a few nearby caches and exploring the lesser travelled parts of the local area.

Not knowing that the cache had been archived we saw that the cache needed some maintenance, so we made the repair and restored the cache.
[/Blue]
Coordinate Accuracy: We found the cache around 2m from where the GPS said we should be looking.
Cache Condition: The container and log book are in good shape.
Took: Nothing.
Left: Nothing.
Thanks for the hunt today,
Regards
Ian & Penny.[font=Verdana]

Searched & searched with no luck

Looks to have been muggled

I looked and looked rang a friend for a hint but sad to say not found

Found on our trip round Oz. Made the find a few weeks ago but not had the opportunity to log. There being very little internet coverage in the North, aside from Telstra that is.
Thanks to all the Cachers that have gone to the trouble of hiding caches, to help break our long journeys. We appreciate your efforts.

10:37:00 AM. On our way east and made the short detour. Spent a while driving around the old streets before parking on the old tennis courts and going for a walk. The better half made the find and the log was signed and cache rehidden. Thanks xr400sim for placing this cache.

Together with Silli1310, we went on holiday for a year. After travelling South America for three months, we went to New Zealand for another two months and then to Tasmania. After exploring the island for three weeks, we continued along the east coast to Darwin.We started our road trip in Melbourne and continued initially through the Alps to Canberra. Later we went via Brisbane up to Cairns. Although we had left ourselves plenty of time, we suddenly had a little more time left than we had thought. Since we still wanted to get to Darwin, we decided to make a "little detour" to Uluru. Of course, this also meant a lot of driving. Since there wasn't really much to explore on the way, we were happy about every change. So we made a small diversions on our diversions to find this cache. It felt like we found more caches today than we had seen cars during the day. It didn't take us long to find them, as the hiding places were limited. Thank you for the break and the cache.

On our [trip around the world](http://www.hoppundweg.piekar.de/) we came to Australia as well. We started in Tasmania, rented a campervan in Melbourne and went up the Eastcoast to Cairns. Then we drove all the way to the Red Centre. We finished in Darwin. We searched many caches and found almost every cache we searched for . Thanks to all the owners of these caches. Now, 2 years later, we recognized, we will never be able to log every cache seperately... So: Sorry for this standard logtext and thanks for one of the caches, which accompanied us on our journey.

#5335

On our trip trough Australia with the hole family we looked also for some caches. They often showed us places we would never had discovered. Thanks a lot to all the people who care about this lovely hobby .

Was a bit disappointed.... no houses left!?

Greetings from switzerland .

TFTC

Today the ghost town was taken over by cattle, could be zombie cattle?
Quick found the cache and left this ghostly place.
Thanks for the hide
R

Excellent stop on long drive

Pretty quick and easy find. Book is getting quite full though.

Visiting from nsw

Called in for morning tea and a sticky beak! Fascinating, all the old roads and slabs (which the RVers are now utilising for van slabs. Wandered across the "river" to what was probably the "shopping centre" Found where the water used to run.

thanks xr400sim for the cache. (needs new log paper)

Wombat the Anthus laptop Geocoin visited, as did Runciple's Grasshopper, doc marten, a mammoth who wants to see sheep, a slovak geocoin and a bumble bee

Great hide. Had a lovely man telling us some history and town map..couldnt sign didnt bring pen..

No water here TFTC and it was a nice slow drive up to the mine.

Found on 26th August 2014. Nice sunny day. Didn't have a pen so couldn't sign the goecache game piece.

TNSL
TFTC xr400sim

found thanks for the hide

[Pink]As we head from town to town as part of our "Purposeful Meander around Oz" the Rats and the Mini Rats found this cache. Dad did most of the hard work here. Sorry for the duplicate log but it takes nothing away from the find.

Thanks for being part of our great adventure. [/Pink]

As we head from town to town as part of our "Purposeful Meander around Oz" the Rats and the Mini Rats found this cache.
We did some free camping some 10km down the road so on our lay day we went to this interesting place, where we also found heaps of free campers and the cache.

Thanks for being part of our great adventure.

Team cruzeycoop
Took Tassie Trekkers coin but was not able to log the number 0663134 , left Jay-Lo thong pendant

Relogged with my new profile. Signed in logbook as Visa96.

TFTC

A nice spot, on the way from Mt Isa to Richmond. TFTC

21/6/14 Kitcatt and Crew, found this with ease.....the problem was the 10 caravans all camped near by. So parked the car in front so we were out of sight.....and took a few photos of the area too......Hope we didn't look too suspicious. Great place to camp for self contained vehicles. TFTC.

Found on our "Making Memories" tour of Mainland Australia.

Today we visited Mary Kathleen site, hard to believe a town existed here!

Thanks for the cache, cache in good order.

Parked up for the night checked GPS and we were 65mtrs from the cache. easy find. TFTC

How interesting. Definitely worth a look.
TFTC

Had a great day visiting Mary Kathleen and the old pit - very interesting.

TFTC TNLN

Nice spot for lunch

Easy find. Thanks.

We have returned from Canada to discover a few more Australian caches! What a great way to explore the "land down under."
How amazing to see the abandoned town site. Easy to picture what it may have looked like back when it was thriving. To think we would have missed this greaat peice of history if it weren't for caching!
Thanks for sharing this amazing place with us xr400sim! Giving it a Fav !

tftc

Wow, what an awesome area! SL

TFTC

Very interesting place, we love it when caches send us to places we would have missed otherwise. Thanks for the history. We got to see some of the buildings and a town map at the visitor centre in Cloncurry (while looking for another cache!).

I learned about this town as a kid and here I am camping on one of its streets(possibly Twelfth St) tonight. Thanks for another one xr400sim.

Good one in an interesting place

Found on the Central Qld leg of our Trip Around Aust, see blog - http://mrlocks.tumblr.com/
Drove around the old town site, very interesting find, some nomads camping around the town, nice quick find by Jacki, TFTC.

Found with SeabreezeOZ, TFTC

Found with SeabreezeOZ, TFTC

Easy find TFTC

Parked the caravan at Corella Dam, and took a drive to Mary Kathleen today.
We drove around the old deserted streets of what used to be the town.
The cache was an easy find, well hidden.
Thanks for the cache, xr400sim.

Hi Found it, nice easy grab.TFTC

An amazing place to camp. We had cows walking down the main street. Found a huge concrete pad and set up after finding the cache.

Stayed for the night and camped in the old swimming pool. I remember when this place was a thriving town. W visited it several times.
Walked to the GZ for the find. Had to be quick as there was a bloke walking his dog and it looked like he wanted a chat.
Dropped some TB's in for a visit.
Thanks for the cache

Great way to spend my birthday morning
Such good memories forever
Tftc

Last for the day and camped on the large cement slab closest to GZ. Awesome place to stay - about 40 other vans and caravans here tonight but so much space to choose from. Must have been quite some town in its day! A quick find and then time for happy hour. Thanks.

As a young lad at Uni back in the early Eighties studying Geology, I knew about this town with the memorable name and what was going on there
I lost track of it during the mid eighties, but the name has always stuck in me head.

Today I was headed east along the Barkly from Isa and wondering where I would find a spot to camp for the night.
A geocache cropped up a few kilometres ahead on the GPS and I hoped that it would provide a nice spot
Then I saw a road sign pointing to, of all places, "Mary Kathleen"

As soon as I turned down the side road I knew that I wasn't going to find a still functioning towne [:o]
But I did find the remains of a towne
What a place !!
All the streets are still there, the kerbing and neat rows of concrete slabs that were no doubt the carports outside each house.
More exploration on foot revealed many more details and I soon found meself headed for what must have been the towne centre

Not many residents here now though.
The population seems to consist entirely of Grey Nomads.
Their number varies from night to night.

I ended up camping for the night at the lawn bowls club on top of the hill, away from the noise of the 'older' generator muggles

TFTC and detour into a spot I never expected to find !!

An interest in piece of history, thanks for the detour.

Tftc

Found by Greg. Is this the fate of all mining towns? TFTC

Remembering the busy blittle town this must have been back in the 1960s it is sad to see this mer shell left with rapidly deteriorating bitumen road, and caravans camping 'free' in a once suburban street. TFTC, and the chance to visit. I wonder if archaeologists will come at some time in the future to piece together the history of the old town site. Call Time Team now?

I am a little late logging on as I found this one back in May 2011 before I got started in Geocaching I did write a note in the log book then telling people about the asbestos in the area

Now this is why I signed up to Geocaching. I would have driven straight past this place and missed out on seeing it. What a fantastic remote location. Easy find once you navigate to the location. Very interesting. I was going to leave A trackable I picked up but was to small.
TFTC!!!!!

Found as part of our 5 week trip from Adelaide to Lawn Hill and then onto the Territory.

Apologies for the late logs but Vodafone doesn't cover much of that part of the world.

We found 109 and had 10 dnfs, some more than once.

Enjoyed my drive out here even though I started on the wrong road.

Found the cache easily.

TFTC

Found the cache a little exposed, so replaced where it seemed to belong. Had good explore around the townsite -was amused to find the swimming pool - and then went to find the mine. Looked very inviting for a swim but I suspect one might glow in the dark afterwards. TFTC.

Found it together with Moselund United, on our trip around in Aussie...
DK

Found it together with Team Autoværn on our journey in Australia.

DK

My 1st one!!!

I was out and about with Groewrs, exploring the local area. This was the first cache we came across, and I beat him to the find.

Thanks for the cache!

Out and about, introducing a newcomer to the hobby. This was our first for the day, and Kezzzzz beat me to the find.

Quite an interesting spot to get in to. Would have been great to see it back in the day.

From here we continued on to the mine.

Thanks for the cache, xr400sim

Many thanks from Peter for this cache on the 13. Australia Trip (2012/2013).
Cheers Peter

Interesting spot. TFTC.

Interesting spot.

Great to have a detour to see this. Like the hint. TFTC

Great place to look around. TCTF TNLN

3rd time here .Just luv it ...Make sure you spend some time camping here .....there's an old bloke here & has a tin shed over the hill ..so make sure you go & see him his name is GREG ...what a surprise walk in the dining table is all set up wine glasses & all beer cold as... 3 course meal [absolutely more than you ever should eat } prawns/fillet steak/Barra/T bone or roast /+dessert ....wait for it $10 ........ we go every night for diner cant cook for that ....menu is what he feels like cooking hahahaha.....
NOW about the cache ....all in good oreder ....an easy find TFTC

TFTC Interesting to wander around and ponder what was here.

What an interesting place to drive around.
We had a look at most of the area imagining what might have been on what street.
Arriving in what appeared to be the town square we made our way over and found the cache.
After finding the cache we had a bit of lunch and talked to a few of the people camped around the place.
The area was popular with a few campers so I made a mental note to add this to the many good bush camp spots for next time I come back.
TFTC.

What a fabulous piece of history....!!! thanks to geocaching we get to see these places one wouldn't see otherwise....was wondering what was in the area where GZ is...thanks to last log i now know it was a water feature...how sad to have this lovelly little town reduced to this....but ...what a great spot for campers..! thanks xr400sim for bringing us here....luved it... a favourite TFTC

Found at 16:10 hrs. I have been to this place before when it was a town. Sad to see it like this now. I remember this water feature.

SL. TFTC.

JG

Too bad there is not more left of the old town TFTC

Thanks to geocaching i would have never found this place.

What a lovely place and a wonderful piece of history. Shame we camped at the Fountain Springs, would have preferred to stay here overnight. Big favourite, well done, TFTC xr400sim.

After visiting Fountain Springs in the morning we hitched up and headed over to Mary Kathleen for a very pleasant afternoon exploring.

A few others where camped in the area so we carefully placed our vehicle to hide our pursuits from view.

We decided to stay here for the night as it is so beautiful and peaceful and had a lovely time wondering around town. The caretaker from the Girl Guides hall, the only building left standing, had spoken to some other travellers about the town and they relayed the information on to us. We went away with a good understanding of what some of the large slabs used to house.

thanks so much for bringing us here. A big favorite point from us.

Loved it.!!! What a great piece of history this place was. We would never have visited here unless we were looking for a cache.Found the cache easily but trying to find our way out,...well...that was a different matter.Circles and more circles, roads going everywhere and not a street sign in sight. LOL.Thanks xr400sim...Silky seekers brisbane...

TFTC - interesting drive around , came in from wrong direction, it was easier to just get out and walk it.

Grabbed this one while on the way to Cloncurry .... Interesting history Thanks xr400sim

Gotcha, Easy find thanks for the hunt

Just tracking my finds

Find #793 !

Stopped here on my trip back from Lake Nash (NT)! Nice little spot to stop, have a stretch, a coffee & catch up on some local history...

Took: Nothing
Left: Nothing
Signed Log

Thanks to xr400sim for bringing me here!

*Cache Condition ~ Fine

Brahms6 found this one a nostalgic trip back to MaryK after 33 years. TFTC

Day 5 of my Perth to Townsville drive! Last Day!!!!

TNLN TFTC

Found during our Great Aussie Adventure Road Trip. Signed log: TNGD. TFTC!

Very interesting site.
Thanks xr400sim TNLN

Very interesting spot. Well worth the detour.

Drilling crew have set up camp near by but there was noone there when we were there. I've been to a few of these towns when they are still being used, such as Leinster & Leigh Creek & others. They all end up like this eventually I guess.

Would be a great spot to camp.

DJ

WanderingAus wandered by on day 98 of our annual Climatic Refugee trip, after enjoying lunch at the Irish Club with the WanderingMrs (aka SWMBO) again I left her to play the pokies and headed out on a hunting trip to find the other two active caches east of the Isa. This was the first on the list, another very easy park and walk over for an extremely quick and easy GAFF 0 find.

My find number 3998, TNLNSL.

*Recommended* *Overall Experience: 3*

T4TH xr400sim
Keith

Rated: for Overall Experience

Camped here teh night. HAd a bit of a walk around and there were a couple of memorials dotted about. There is a log book to sign for a family of 4 kids that grew up at Mary K. From memory they called themselves the travelling bears. On road back is a memorial to a couple who lived here in the 50's. Fascinating place and history. Better campspot than the one down the road which is right next to teh highway.

Thanks for the cache.

Camping down the road and decided to have a look around the area TFTC.

1589 Found by baby&Mrs gopher at 1210.What a great spot easy find even though baby almost knocked himself out on the water device.SL visited CacheMover coin and British Traveller TB.Tnx xr400sim

Dropped in on our way west from Cloncurry. A surprising spot.

My daughter sent me the co-ords for this when I was on my way to Kakadu
I thought why not
Stopped and grabbed the cache and found a awesome lil free camping area so I decided to stay the night.
TFTC

Interesting little ghost town. Found not to much trouble.

Found by Bethden at 6.10pm on June 7 during trip to Darwin.We have passed the turn in to this spot many times and never thought about going in but the lure of a cache brought us in this time. I did some research and found that it is available as an overnight camp spot so we set up,lit a fire and had a great night under the stars.Cache find was very easy as well.TFTC

Weird - all those streets and nowhere to go. The ghost gums, stark white in the late afternoon sun light, say it all. TFTC.

it was just amazing driving around the town, eerie in they sense it was just abandoned and only the concrete slabs and roads remain, easy find, TFTC

Find number 8 for the day, and find number 311 on the twentysixth day of our month long trip to Warwick, Lightning Ridge, Boulia, Plenty Highway, Alice Springs, Ayres Rock, Darwin, and home. Found at 1620hrs Qld time.

I had been in to Mary K a number of times since its demise. Not a lot left after all these years.

Cheers
Bundy