29 August 2013 - Burra Caravan Park, Burra, South Australia

The road from Clare across to Burra is just over forty kilometres long, only a short trip. It climbs up out of the Clare Valley and crosses beautiful farming country, again sheep and cropping, bypassing the small rural settlement of Farrell Flat which announces its presence by the inevitable grain silos and was once a railhead. Soon it joins the Barrier Highway and we drove the last few kilometres across low hills to the historic township of Burra, made famous for once having one of the world’s largest copper mines.

Burra is now listed as a State Heritage Area and hosts many great historical sites. One might be forgiven thinking that it is tourism that holds the town of a little under one thousand people together, however according to the woman in the AGL Information Centre, the economy revolves around the agricultural industry; wool and cereal crops. This Centre is the PR office for the AGL Hallett wind farms and drew us in as all such places do. We had seen even more turbines on the hills to the north as we came across to Burra today, and were keen to understand the extent of wind farming in the region. Inside we found a wonderful map with the five Hallett wind farms clearly marked and we learned that here are to be found a total of one hundred and sixty seven wind turbines. Now that is impressive!

I suggested to the very helpful hostess that she may have had visitors who were less impressed than us in recent times, and asked her to tell me about those people. What kind of people were they and what was their gripe? She told us that they were mostly people who were bitter about the amount of money the land owners receive, for the privilege of having turbines standing on their farms. The reality is that the “rent” money supplements the farmer’s income significantly, and they can still continue to graze their sheep beneath the turbines with surety of twenty five years of passive income. Because the land on which the turbines stand is too steep and too elevated for cropping, the farmers don’t even have to forgo cultivation space.

At the real Information Centre we learned about the Burra Heritage Passport, a ticket and key to explore the town’s history. For $25 (or $20 if you are old like my husband) you have access to locked areas, heritage sites and a comprehensive guide book. We crossed the road to consider the wares in the bakery and whether we wanted to fork out $45 for this wonderful experience. I suggested we make our way to the caravan park, set up and then consider what we wanted to do. The tourist brochure spelled out that Burra had “a caravan park”; that is, singular, and so we headed to this park, just across the Burra Creek from the main street and booked in. Once set up, we considered all the information we had, and in doing so, found that the local showground also offers powered sites. This annoyed us somewhat, because we do like to patronise these sorts of places and the tourist information had been misleading. Back at the Information Centre, this time reached on foot, we learned that the tariff at the showground was $15 as opposed to the $25 we had just shelled out at the caravan park. We also decided that we would buy a copy of the comprehensive guide book for $5 and do our own tour.

This caravan park is a lovely little park, brilliantly situated and at $25, well priced, although if we all decided to head for the loos at the same time, there will be a very long queue. This evening the park is full and we are glad we arrived so early in the day.

After lunch we headed off in the landcruiser, following the map in the guide, admiring the wonderful heritage buildings and up to the mine site. 

Copper ore was first discovered by shepherds at two localities near Burra Creek. Under the regulations of the time, mineral rights to the deposits could only be acquired by purchase of a Special Survey of 20,000 acres from the Government.

Two groups, nicknamed the Nobs and the Snobs, vied for ownership of the copper bearing land. The Nobs, or Princess Royal Mining Company, were capitalists and pastoralists and included the owners of the Kapunda Mine. The Snobs, or Southern Australian Mining Association, were a group of Adelaide shopkeepers and merchants.

The Burra Creek Special Survey, or Monster Mine, measuring eight miles by four miles, was jointly purchased in August 1845 by these two groups who agreed to divide it in two, each half containing one of the known discoveries. Lots were drawn to determine ownership of each half. The first group drew the southern half and named their mine Princess Royal, but the amount of ore turned out to be small and it closed in 1851. The second group drew the prize, the northern half and named the mine Burra Burra, which began producing copper in 1845. It grew rapidly to become one of the world’s great copper producers. By 1851 the mine employed more than 1,000 men and boys and the town’s population exceeded 5,000. The Victorian gold rush caused a halt to production from 1852 to 1854, after which it continued to boom until 1861. It then declined and in 1869, closed for conversion to open cut operations.

As an underground mine it was worked to a depth of 183 metres, however from 1870 to 1877, as an open cut operation it was only mined to a depth of thirty seven metres. This proved uneconomic and the mine closed in September 1877. Between 1845 and 1877, the mine had produced 50,000 tonnes of copper metal from 700,000 tonnes of ore. There were many attempts to restart mining at Burra. The most serious was by the Burra Burra Copper Company, which operated from 1901 to 1907.

Developments to recover copper from low grade ores saw the mine re-opened in 1970, when Samin Ltd began new open cut operations on the site of the old workings. These operations continued until 1981 and with more modern methods mined to a depth of 100 metres. Concentrate containing about 24,000 tonnes of copper metal was produced from two million tonnes of ore.

Remnants of copper mining at Burra

These later years resulted in the loss of some of the old mine buildings and the production of the enlarged pit which can be seen today. After operations ceased, the water level again rose to create the present day pool.

Throughout the years, water seeping up into the mine had been a problem and during the years of abandonment, the old open cut and its “Mine Pool” were places that attracted local youth seeking rabbits, pigeons, swimming and adventure, despite the dangers of open shafts and crumbling cliffs. At different times the pool was the site for a swimming club.

The town of Burra has some similarity to Whyalla and Tom Price in that it was set up as a Company town; the first such in Australia. It was also the first mining township in Australia.

Burra began its life as Kooringa, aboriginal for “the locality of sheoa”’ and was laid out by the SA Mining Association in 1846. It was situated near the Burra mine and cottages were constructed by the company for miners and their families. Because the company did not grant freehold titles until 1872, other townships developed adjacent to the northern boundary of the company’s property. By 1851 it had become a collection of towns known as “the Burra” with a population of 5,000. It was Australia’s seventh largest town and the largest inland centre, prior to the discovery of gold in eastern Australia.

The other villages which came under the Burra umbrella were Redruth, named along with its streets after Cornish localities, Aberdeen, New Aberdeen, Llwchr, inhabited by Celtic speaking Welshmen and Hampton.

 You will have guessed by now that even without our Heritage Passports, we were able to enjoy and absorb much of Burra’s history. At the mine site we were able to walk around all but the compound that houses the Morphett’s Enginehouse Museum. At the former Redruth Gaol, we were able to walk around the outside and see as much of the gaol as the nearby grazing sheep do.

Interestingly this old gaol, the first in South Australia outside Adelaide, which operated first for what it was built and later as a reformatory school for girls, spanning the years 1856 through to 1922, was used in the filming of Breaker Morant in 1979.

Paxton Square Cottages

The scattered stone remains of Hampton are also only accessible with the magic key, however we were able to enjoy an overview from the road. Not so of Smelts Paddock, however much of this is about sites where various features used to stand. The Paxton Square Cottages in the same street as this caravan park, three rows of thirty three cottages, were built between 1849 and 1852 as alternative housing for those living in dugouts along the creek bank. Early last century they changed hands and were offered as low rent housing for the town. Today they are owned by the local council and available as visitor accommodation.

The special key is also required to access good views of two restored dugouts, however we were able to see enough from the road to understand that these had been desperate times for homeless miners. In 1851 about 1,800 people in a total population of 4,400 lived in nearly 600 of these dugouts. In that same year, three floods devastated “Creek Street” driving the residents from their holes. Few have been occupied since 1860 and the ones in existence today are there solely for the tourist’s entertainment. 

We parked opposite the Town Hall, a grand work of architecture built in 1874 and took in the excellent historic photographic exhibition. The collection is eclectic and includes photos of stud merino sheep compiled in 1911.

Almost next door, we visited the art gallery, housed in the old Kooringa Telegraph Station, yet another lovely old building dating back to 1861. Here we enjoyed a couple of contemporary exhibitions and the small collection of marvelously historic and no doubt valuable landscapes by ST Gill, from as early as 1851.
 

I have failed to mention that the wind has dominated the day, more so than the overload of history. The drive across from Clare was effected, however as the day progressed, we have had severe gusts of over 50 kph, and little less than 30 kph. This has not made for a comfortable day at all, however we were glad we had not been on the road too much after 10 am. I suspect that many of the campers in here tonight are here rather than out on the road being buffeted by the wild weather. The forecast is for better weather tomorrow which is just as well; we will be heading into the Riverlands tomorrow.