The Mines of Moonta

On Saturday Sarah and I decided to take a road trip up the base of the Yorke Peninsula, which is about 150 kilometers north of Adelaide. It was a pretty pleasant drive up through mostly farm country. We stopped in Port Wakefield for lunch and petrol. We had pasties and pies at a fabulous little place called Kiplings Bakery. We had to defend our food against a large flock of very territorial seagulls. After lunch we made our way over to a town called Moonta, which claims to be Australia's "Little Cornwall." It used to be a huge copper mining center with a large population of cornish miners, who ate many cornish pasties. Here are a few things we saw while there:

Some nice flowers. There are a lot of flowers that bloom throughout the year, but winter is drawing to a close, so there are even more than ever.

This is some of the mining equipment left over from the heyday.

Old railroad ties near a station for the mine's trams.

They had a little train tour of the above ground mine workings. It was pretty good. The guide had a barely comprehendable accent which would have had me rolling on the ground had I not been on a train.

We also went down to Moonta's jetty, which was fairly packed with local fishermen and women hauling in their exotic trophies. One young gentleman had caught himself a squid,

And a crab.

The Moonta jetty.