This geocache including this description is a restoration of the original geocache Windmill by
HawMorFords
Windmill was once Queensland's most found Geocache!
(524 finds between 17th February 2007 and 20th November 2011)
This cache is located very close to Queensland's oldest surviving building.
Take some time and sit a while on the grassy patch near the windmill and complete the log for this cache... take a moment to reflect what this area would have looked like in 1828.
We hope you enjoy this marvellous part of Brisbane's history.
Queensland's oldest surviving building, the Windmill, was constructed by convicts in 1828 to grind flour and maize meal
as food for the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement.
A stone and brick building, it contained two pair of mill stones - one pair connected to the Windmill sails, the other to a treadmill outside. The treadmill was used when the Windmill was under repair, in calm weather, or as a means of punishment for convicts.
It was demolished after the area was opened up to free settlement in 1842.
The Windmill fell into disuse and as was converted to a signal station in 1861. It was also used as a fire look-out and for pioneer radio and television broadcasting experiments in the 1920's - 1940's.
The extant copper time-ball was dropped regularly from 1895 to 1930 at 1pm.
Of the adjacent Reservoirs, the smaller was built in 1871 in association with the Enoggera Dam Water Supply Works. This was the first major municipal engineering undertaking in Queensland, servicing Queen, George and Edward Streets. The second larger structure was completed in 1882.
The Reservoirs are brick, box-form structures with subterranean, arched, baffle walls. The timber and corrugated iron roofs are later additions.
Please replace as found
Happy Hunting.
(If you don't want to climb up the hill from the centre of the city the Spring Hill Loop Route 30 is a free bus service. It leaves every few minutes from opposite the GPO. You need to go 3/4 of the way round to stop 134.)