First stop this morning was to the beach at Moonta Bay for a fund raising event put on by the Moonta Community Private Hospital. Judith, our current host, is the CEO and Director of Nursing at the hospital. We contributed to fund raising by purchasing and scoffing a bacon and egg roll, yum yum. There were a sand shaping activities down at the beach and the kiddies were asked to make a sea creature in sand. This held Emily's attention for about 10 seconds and Lachie's for less, so Clare and Judith were left to build a starfish. Apparently starfish are now known as sea stars as they are not technically fish but this fact, pointed out by the lady running the activity, was lost on the kids.
After collecting some shells and the obligatory play in the park, we headed off to the old Moonta mines for a tour. Moonta was founded on copper mining back in the 1860's - 70's. During it's hey day it was the second largest town in Sth Aus behind Adelaide. The mining heritage has been retained where possible and volunteers have constructed about 2km of train track around the site for tourists. Clare, Judith, Emily, Lachie and myself jumped on the train and we were fortunate enough to be the only people for the early (11.30am) train and had our pick of carriages.
Our tour guide and train driver, Ron, was filling in for the day as the usual guide had other commitments. Ron was extremely enthusiastic but a little forgetful about dates so things were a bit jumbled but we got the gist of it. The mines were worked mainly by Cornish miners who came out from the UK to live and work in the Moonta mines. Conditions were very tough, not only was the work hard and dangerous but there is a significant lack of water in the area so the only water available had to be collected by rainfall. Some of the deepest shafts were up to 300m deep so the area is not somewhere to go wandering around at night.
The 1870's were the 'big years' for Moonta with over 12,000 people living in the area at that time. Mining dropped off a little in the late 1800's but picked up again in the early 1900's when they figured out how to extract more copper from the 'tailings' the waste from the earlier mining operations.
I could have spent much longer as I found it very interesting but having to work to kiddie time meant it was time to go when the train got back after an hour long tour of the mine site.
When we got back to Judith's, Lachie crashed for nearly 3 hours and I managed to get some time to vacuum the car. This was certainly long overdue. Emily decided that herself and Clare needed some 'Mummy/Emily time' so Clare was forced to take Emily to the park in the sweltering 35 degree heat. Fortunately the park was under shade cloth so there was some minor escape from the sun.
Clare and I watched a DVD before going to bed. Back on the road tomorrow, heading to Victor Harbour. Moonta was as far west as we will get on this trip, time to head east again.
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ReplyDelete28th Jan at 11.57pm Murgon time:
DeleteI love reading about your days. Thanks for posting so many interesting items and such beautiful photos. Christine xx
Rod will have to catch up when he returns from Darwin :)