It wasn't raining, nor as cold as several days ago, however the town was blanketed in fog. When the mist did finally lift, we were left with a bleak day but then, it is winter, and I should never expect more.
After a late rising, and messing about with household chores, we set off through Bridgetown and north on the South Western Highway the sixteen kilometres to Greenbushes.
Greenbushes sits at the highest point of the Darling Scarp at 324 metres ASL and behind the immediate scenes, is a hive of activity mining tin and tantalite, producing 35% of the world’s needs.
I would hazard a guess and say that most of the employees live in Bridgetown or further afield. The town itself was quite dead today, and seems to have been so for some time. The main highway once passed through the middle of town which would have done much for the viability of commerce in the town, but today there is little to offer the motorist travelling through to Albany from Bunbury, just two pubs which seem to be the only places you can source refreshments. There was one shop open, with such a camouflaged frontage I was unable to detect what it actually sold and a roadhouse where one could buy fuel at inflated prices.
We had been told about the Discovery Centre and were keen to make that our first port of call. We had also been told it was closed on Monday, so had deliberately not gone that day. Today is Thursday, and it was between 10 am and 2 pm, so in theory it should have been open, and would have been if we had called before they changed the opening days in July 2009. Alas, that must have been when the woman in the Bridgetown Information Centre last called. Now the opening days are restricted to Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Instead we headed up to the lookout over the Cornwall Pit, a massive open cast mine nearly 300 metres deep, now seemingly abandoned. The soft rock resources were exhausted in 1992 and mining of the hard rock subsequently commenced. This massive pit has yielded up 9.2 million tonnes of ore, 6 million pounds of Tantalum and 4.7 million kilograms of tin; the variety of weight measures there to confuse matters.
I was interested to learn what these obscure minerals are used for. In electronics, tantalum is used in tantalum wire and capacitors, in metal work, for cutting bits and for high temperature applications, in aerospace, aerospace structures, jet engines and gas turbine parts.
The mined spodumene which yields lithium is used in flat glass, ceramics, container glass, fibreglass and curiously feed stock for chemical plant, and extracted lithium chemicals are used in air-conditioning systems, batteries, greases, rubber products and pharmaceuticals and aluminium alloy for aircraft. And this all comes from the locality of Greenbushes.
The Greenbushes area has a long history of mining dating right back to 1886 when tin was discovered. Early evidence of early underground mining remains today; tunnels and shaft areas visible if one takes the mining heritage walk.
Tantalum was always mined here in association with tin, however it was not until the 1940s that the true worth of the rare blue grey metal was realised.
In 1980 an underground development to explore the tantalum resource commenced, closing in 1983 and the open cut operation has since mined through the old workings in tandem of the recommenced underground mining restarted in 2001 beneath Cornwall Pit. This produces only about one third of the ore supplied by the open cut operations. The lower volume is offset by higher grades of material.
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| Open cast mine at Greenbushes |
The population of Greenbushes has fluctuated throughout the life of the mines and those years when timber milling and farming has filled the economic downturns. In 1907 the town had a population of 3,000, boasting eight hotels, boarding houses and thirty four shops. By 1955, it had dropped to 850, and today about 400.
Apart from being promoted by the friendly women in Bridgetown who gave us incorrect opening days, we had seen that there were several walks in the area; some a bit too long for our preference, some that looked more interesting. We had hoped to glean a little more information from the Discovery Centre.
We started with the short walk about the Greenbushes Pool Boardwalk, suitable for grannies and tots alike; a gentle 513 metre stroll around a natural waterhole, half on beautiful wooden decks and the other half on smooth gravel. A lot of money has been poured into the upgrade of this recreation area.
During tin mining operations in the late 1890s, the pool was excavated from a natural spring and used as a water supply. Some years later, it was decommissioned as a water supply but instead became popular for swimming, even becoming the official venue for school swimming lessons for children from Greenbushes, Balingup, Kirup, Doonybrook and Bridgetown schools and remained so until the mid-1970s. Today we were alone there, except for one scarlet robin. The playground and picnic area might have to wait for the warmer weather of late spring.
We decided that we would do part of the New Zealand Gully Walk, a seven kilometre walk of three hours however were unable to find the points half way around the trail. The trail seems to be poorly marked and I could quickly see that this could even cause a domestic if we persevered. We drove around Old North Greenbushes, a very small settlement but surprisingly occupied by half a dozen folk, the old railway station on the rail constructed at the end of the nineteenth century and closed less than one hundred years later and a still operating timber mill.
The lack of signage was a surprise as the interpretative panels all about the town generally are of a high standard and well maintained. Nothing however explains why this Gully Walk is named “New Zealand”.
And so frustrated by this, the weather and the fact the Discovery Centre was closed, we left Greenbushes and headed for the Hester Forest, driving south east toward Boyup Brook and then cutting through to the Bridgetown – Boyup Brook Road we had returned on a couple of days ago. We soon found the track into the forest, parked up and ate our lunch, before setting off for a very pleasant walk through the Jarrah – Marri Forest.
The Hester Conservation Park is a collection of several blocks of forest bounded by lovely farmland. The town of Hester was gazetted in 1899 but now seems to be buried beneath the trees, bits of corrugated iron peeping tantalising from the earth. The town, brook and forest are all named after a 1850’s settlor named Edward Godfrey Hester.
The walk was hardly challenging, but enjoyable nonetheless; we were serenaded, or rather laughed at, by a few kookaburras, and saw red wattle birds, ring-necked green parrots and through the boundary fence, the ever present magpies, sheep and cattle.
The day had turned out a little disappointing or at least gauged by our earlier expectations, however we have now done with the delightful town of Bridgetown, and will head off tomorrow.
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