Moonta Mines

It was a quick drive from Clare across to the coast at Port Wakefield and across the top of the Yorke Peninsula to Moonta. Our accommodation, overlooking the jetty at Moonta Bay, had spacious, well-appointed rooms, marvellous water views and an annoying flock of birds that cooed and squawked and rattled around on the roof in football boots at all hours of the day and night.

Then it was off to explore a part of the so-called “Copper Coast”.

Paddy Ryan, an alcoholic shepherd, found some copper near a wombat burrow in 1861, and, undeterred by minor issues such as a complete lack of drinking water, an industry was born. Cornish miners, fleeing the tough times in their homeland (and apparently not thirsty) soon put their mining skills to good use and the Moonta Mines thrived until after the First World War.

The site of the former mines, heritage listed, is a huge, rather desolate, area of tailings heaps, ruined buildings and assorted old junk. We walked and drove around to quite a few of the main items, but the information on each when we got there was a bit sparse.

There is also a popular tourist railway, formerly used to transport the ore, but due to a stuff up on our part we weren’t there on a day that it was running.

We visited the museum, located in the rather grand former Moonta Mines school building, which covered both the mechanical processes in the mines and the cultural and economic impacts of life in Moonta.

It was a tough life. The shortage of good water brought frequent and deadly outbreaks of typhoid and there are many unmarked children’s graves in the cemetery.

We also enjoyed wandering the town - there is no shortage of attractive old buildings - and a few windswept walks down on the coast.

And we had a couple of Cornish pasties.Read more