Book, river of gold

I was given this book and it is a really good read, it also has a lot of information on gold fields and there rough locations
Could be classed a history book, and would be a good resource book for gold locations.

Ah "The Palmer"
I remember in the early 90's we probably had Ml 16000 detectors from memory and wanted to check out "The Palmer" Left our Tandem Van at the nearby Fuel stop on the highway, and with 3/4 Tank of fuel in our Landcruiser decided it would be more than enough for the 60km trip in and the return.

After about 20Km going thru creeks with steep in and out gradients I removed the towbar hitch to stop the track gouging.

We came across some sort of prime mover with a small grader on a trailer going to a mine, I asked him, how he got thru the deep creeks, his reply "I just skidded it thru", or words to that effect.

We continued on, and with the very steep hills, my fuel gauge started to read zero going up some of them, then together with going along the ridge lines with very steep drop offs, SWMBO was worried about various issues that could confront us in this isolated area, so at about 45Km we drove back to our van.

Why the book The River of Gold hasn't been made into a TV series I'll never know. A great book that tells it like it was. Hector Holthouse was a great Australian historian and of Qld in particular. Another great read about Qld goldfields is the book, Lost Australian mines and treasures.

Another good book with a lot of history of how the old diggers lived on the goldfields. "Nothing but GOLD - the Diggers of 1852" by Robyn Annear. Text Publishing, Melbourne. I fully recommend this one, specially if you are interesting in what it was like back then, This is the book that will give you the insight of what it was like back then.
wombat

I first read River Of Gold by Hector Holthouse in 2005 when visiting the Kinokuniya bookstore in Sydney CBD..  I consider it to be one of the hardest books to put down.  I bought a second copy for a friend and I've read my own copy at least 8 times from start to finish.   What I really like about the book is that it's supported with names and useful references but it's not politically correct.  Hence the opening chapter was about cannibalism and predation by native Australians... something they didn't teach you about in school.   It's just as unflattering about the white Europeans on the goldfields.  Bare bones and all, the book deals with the good and the bad of all those involved, regardless of race.  He's managed to rope all these incidents together to form a colorful story of Australian history that few modern readers would be familiar with. I have also noted that several  "scholarly fellows" have recentlytried to discount the incidents Hector recounts that are less than flattering accounts of many incidents, even though he has quoted the newspapers, postmasters and diaries from the day.

The cruel events that befell the early prospectors on the Palmer, the robberies and the amazing (insane) incidents that occurred during the early days of the Palmer River gold rush are all there.  And this book essentially doesn't need to cover the other goldfields at the time.  There's plenty of adventure to be discovered in the North Queensland region and I found it to be an honest account of the values of the times. Highly recommended. Prospectors today have no idea how easy they have it. But the stories of the incredible amounts of gold they were finding back then is enough to make you salivate.

Granite, yes this book woulld make a good movie, i have just finished reading it and it gets hard to put down. The hard times and the murders that the old fella's had in them days and what they had to put up with is beyond belief. Can you imagine todays kids back in that time living that lifestyle - not