Apr 18-19 Burra

We have spent 3 nights (2 days) in Burra. It is a great town. The National Trust and/or South Australian government have declared the whole town to be of historical significance and so they should. They have a heritage tour, which is self-guided with a key to get into the many places of interest. We spent much of our 2 days just working our way along the tour - and even still we have not seen it all.

The town was established because of a copper mine around the mid 1800s. In fact the town was owned by the mining company - not sure if that has happened any where else in Australia. At its peak, it was the largest inland town in Australia. Lots more interesting history, but I won't bore the blog with too much.

We have never seen so many beautiful stone cottages in one place before - there are hundreds of them. It is actually odd to see a house that is not made of old stone.

One of my favourite points in the tour was a whole village of stone building ruins - Hampton. The last inhabitant only moved out in 1960. Sad in a way to see it go to ruin, but fascinating to imagine what was there and the hard work that went into creating it in the first place.

Some other places of interest along the tour were the mining and smelting works, the old gaol, which also served as a girls' reformatory, dug-out homes along the river bank and the old brewery with its network of underground tunnels to explore.

The Burra copper mine stopped producing a long time ago, so for many years, Burra has been in decline. But they are doing a very good job of turning the town into a major tourist attraction for South Australia.

Exlporing the ruins of the Burra Monster Mine

How did you dogs get in there?

One of the chimney flues for the massive boiler that powered the crusher

The powder magazine - where they kept the explosives

The miners' dug-out homes in the banks of the river

Those metal bars don't stop everyone...

Entrance to Hampton - the village of ruins

Exploring some of the ruins

Impressive dry-wall stone buildings

More exploring at Hampton - could this be where the last inhabitant lived?

The Redruth Gaol - also Girls' Reformatory and sometime private residence

The exercise yard at the gaol

The escape deterrent on top of the gaol walls

The dogs explore the old smelting yards. Note the use of slag on the walls.

Entrance to the brewery

Underground at the brewery

More underground tunnels

And for Peter, here is the Google map link: Burra