00:00For decades, people have been telling me about a Royal Toilet, a toilet built for the Queen for her visit to view the snowy hydro scheme in the snowy mountains in 1958.
00:13And I thought it was a load of baloney, but today I've come to the spot.
00:17Right where I'm standing was the Royal Loo.
00:20It was apparently, well according to folklore at least, maybe a bit of truth to it,
00:25it was built here at Yukon Bean Lookout when they expanded the lookout in preparation for the Queen's visit in 1958.
00:34But to check on some of these facts and to try and get to the bottom of this mystery of the Royal Loo,
00:40I've tracked down Steve Brayshaw, an Amitabhi's unofficial historian who knows everything about Northern Kosciuszko National Park.
00:49And he's going to tell me all about the Royal Loo.
00:55Now Steve, this is also known as the Queen's Lookout. Why is that?
00:59There was always a lookout here, but it was upgraded for the Queen's visit when she toured the scheme back in 1958.
01:07I understand that this toilet block was built for that Queen's visit.
01:11That's correct. Supposedly she went to the loo here. Whether that's an urban myth or not, I do not know.
01:20But what we do know is it's a magnificent view and that's why the lookout was here, to see the magnificent Yukon Bean Dam.
01:27Yeah, it's a spectacular view. I believe the viewing platform was supposed to be one mile above sea level.
01:36And why isn't the toilet here anymore? Why do we just have a concrete slab and the remains of the toilet?
01:42There was a bit of toing and froing with Parks and Snowy as to who was responsible for the maintenance of it.
01:49And in the end it fell into disrepair, so the Parks put a tender out for the removal of it.
01:56And the people that had Braemar, which is just over my shoulder, won the contract to remove it.
02:04And they took all the equipment and the structure down and it's their recreation hall at Braemar now, I believe.
02:13And if you fossick around here you can find some old remnants of the toilet bowl.
02:19Maybe the one used by the Queen, maybe not, we're not sure.
02:22But you just found someone just up here on the side of the hill here.
02:28It looks like it could be part of the pan, possibly.
02:33It's a bit hard to say what it is, but it's definitely porcelain.
02:39Thanks for sharing with me some of the stories and or folklore we're not too sure about the Queen's loo here at Yukon Bean Lookout.
02:57www.yukon.ca
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