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Saturday, 4 February 2017

Day 38 - Saturday 4 February - The Copper Coast


DAY 38
SATURDAY
4 February 2017 – 
Moonta Bay – Wallaroo – Kadina – Moonta Mines – The Copper Coast

With a late night, the morning arrived early. It had rained softly in the night, not for long but it was a sign of what was to come.  Paul got out and went off fishing, as there was no wind. I stayed put reading, before thinking I should get out too, checking on whether Danny Green had got the job done against Mundine. He had.
I wandered down onto the jetty and joined Paul. It was far busier out here today. The water was calm and the air still it was extremely peaceful. Paul had some success but it wasn’t as fruitful as yesterday and the noise coming from a loud child was starting to pee him off. I made my way back and left him to it.
Once back, I set up the van and organised the breakfast, before getting onto the net and continuing to add bits n bobs. Paul returned shortly after and I went off for a shower. When I returned I could see the rain coming. The sky had darkened off and before long I was watching the water fall around me.
With Paul organised, we grabbed what we required for the day and drove along the shoddy roads to Wallaroo, the third town in the copper mining triangle. By the time we arrived, the rain had set in, so it was on with the jackets as we wandered up the main street. The thunder roared and the lightning cracked keeping the locals scurrying for cover, only tourists would be out wandering and taking photos!
We found the local bakery and picked up a Cornish pasty. Our intention was to try one in each of the three towns and do a comparison. This one was nice and full and chunky, but the pastry was a bit thick and doughy. Nice try.
We checked out the outer of the maritime museum and then went to the jetty, but the rain began in earnest again, so we got back in the car drove past the chimney stack of the old copper mine and made our way to Kadina. 
10min later we were pulled up and ready to do a little shopping for ingredients for dinner and coming away with a new limited release salted caramel Kahlua to try out later. 
We put the shopping in the car and then did a tour around the centre checking out the old buildings, before once again finding the bakery and buying Cornish pasty number 2. We weren’t ready to eat them though, so they came with us.
We stopped in at the info centre at the Farm Shed Museum finding out that Moonta bakery is the place to go for a pastie. Hmm that one will have to wait until tomorrow.





  With some extra info we made our way on to Moonta Mines railway and tourist centre. Once we had the low down and a map, we jumped back in the car and drove out to the old Miners Cottage.

 
As it wasn’t open yet, we stayed in the car and enjoyed our pasties. These ones had better pastry and pumpkin to add sweetness, though they weren’t as full with their filling, however they beat the first one. We were showed around the cottage, but one of the descendants, whom proudly talked about her family heritage. It was all quite quaint and as you would expect, full of memorabilia. We couldn’t take photos inside but I did take some in the gorgeous garden.


Once we had finished we moved on to the Hancock tailings heap, to walk up the side and admire the view before driving on to the old school site, now a museum, the tourist train station and the old post office, now a sweet shop.











We wandered around the outside of the various buildings sticking our nose in to different spots and reading the info boards outlining the use of the infrastructure. We then continued on to check out the Methodist Church and admire the sunflowers growing along the way. 




Our final stop within the mine complex was the Hughes Pump House. As we arrived the rain started again and the ground became slippery as the mud became wet. We checked out the pump house and admired the tall stack. The pump house reached down 360m in its day.  A rusted furnace was also laid out in view to show what they were like. 







We had to find a log to dance around on and attempt to remove the mud from our shoes before we returned to the car and then back into Moonta. 






We drove down the main street, stopping occasionally to take photos of the buildings, sunflowers and the remnants of Cornish heritage, UK mailboxes.  After dodging the rain we made our way back to the van.
Paul packed up things ready for tomorrow and I continued working on the photos and blog. It was nice to have some quiet time to rest and enjoy the afternoon.
By 5pm we were ready to go back out for a walk up into the suburb, checking out the holiday homes and the views they had. We then walked along the beach before making one last run along the jetty and seeing what was being caught; squid and lots of them.




The rain was set in again. It wasn’t cold nor was it windy, in fact the water looked calmer than yesterday, but it was still wet, so we returned to the van and started organising dinner; the squid and garfish Paul had caught yesterday.  I put together an easy salad after making the salt and pepper coating and then it was time to sit back and enjoy.






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