Discover ancient paintings and gold history

Cue is a well-preserved Goldfields town with buildings dating from the 1890s. It once had a population of around 10,000 but has shrunk over the years to 375 people, including those living on pastoral stations. 

The town is 649km north of Perth and features heritage buildings, local ghost towns and an extensive gallery of Aboriginal rock art.

Mick Fitzgerald, a prospector, is reported to have noticed a 10-ounce gold nugget round the neck of local Aborigine known as Governor. He led Fitzgerald to a quartz outcrop bearing gold in the centre of what is now Cue, on New Year’s day 1892.

First gold find in Cue

Since then mines have been started, flourished, abandoned and restarted as gold prices soared and developments in ore treatment allowed extraction of more of the precious metal.

Walga Rock, some 48km out of town, known as Walganha in the Wajarri language, is important to the local Aborigines as a dreaming site and for its sacred rock art.

Walga Rock is a huge monolith. At five kilometres in diameter and 1.5 kilometres in length, it is the second largest in Australia. 

An easy climb to the top provides spectacular views that are well worth the effort. 

The rock has a large shallow cave which contains the largest gallery of Aboriginal rock paintings in Western Australia. 

The al fresco gallery includes an enigmatic painting of a European sailing ship although the rock is 350km from the coast.

This picture has intrigued travellers and academics for the past century, ever since its existence became known outside the Wajarri people. 

The painting is made of white ochre, similar to other paintings on the rock but is stylistically very different to everything else in the extensive gallery. It appears to depict a specific vessel and there is what could be Arabic verse in the same white ochre below it. 

One theory is that it was painted by a sailor from one of the long-lost Dutch ships which came to grief off Western Australia’s rugged coast in the 17th Century. He may have been looked after by Aborigines. Another theory is that it was done by an Afghan camel guide.

Recent research by Edith Cowan University anthropologist Esmée Webb suggests the drawing is of the Xanthos, which traded along Western Australian coastline from 1845 to 1872 when it sank at Port Gregory. 

The two masts and funnel and the painted faux gun ports match the Xanthos, as does the flat deck. The Dutch ships Batavia and Zuytdorp both had three masts and a high stern. There is also no report of the painting prior to the 20th century.

Nearby is the ghost town of Big Bell, where gold was mined from 1930 to 1950. The ruins of the Presbyterian church and a massive art nouveau pub remain standing. The pub is reputed to have the longest bar in Australia.

Closer to Cue, the ghost town of Day Dawn contains ruins of the hospital and restored mine office buildings still in use. Herbert Hoover, one time president of the USA, worked at this mine before transferring to Gwalia.

Between 1891 and 1929 the Great Fingall Mine yielded 1,200,000 ounces of gold from nearly two million tonnes of ore. The underground working reaching 20 levels. The mine is set to be reopened by Westgold. A drilling program estimates it contains 380,000 oz of recoverable metal.

Masonic Lodge in Cue

Buildings surviving in the town include the two-storey masonic lodge built in 1899 from timber and galvanised iron and said to be the largest building in the southern hemisphere constructed this way, limestone government buildings from 1895 line the main street.

The Cue Shire administration building (1895) houses an extensive collection of historical photographs of the town. The building previously house the Western Australian Investment Company and later the Gentlemen’s Club. 

Cue is worth a day or two stop-over for its Goldfields history and its advanced state of preservation.

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Frank Smith
Frank Smith was trained as an agricultural scientist in the UK, moving to WA in 1974 and shortly afterwards began lecturing at WAIT (now Curtin University) in soils and agronomy. In 1979 he joined the Agriculture Protection Board in charge of publications and media relations, studying part time for a degree in Journalism. In 1992 he spent a year as a visiting professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Later he ran a small publication company with his wife Mary-Helen. He then began freelance writing, editing and book indexing. He has written articles for more than 40 magazines in four continents and indexed more than 20 books. In 2007 he started writing for Have a Go News and gradually reduced his writing for other publications. He later took over the subediting, ensuring Have a Go News is consistent in style and highly readable. He and Mary-Helen live in a passive solar home in the Perth Hills with a varying collection of quendas and native birds.