I'm going to have to come back to Burra
and the Clare Valley. So much to see, so much beauty to take in. It
got to the stage where I had to tell myself, “This is not my
holiday. This is just passing through to get to my holiday
destination.” I spent too much time in and around Burra so that I had
to ditch some of my planned stops and take the most direct routes to Port Pirie
and Port Augusta.
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| Burra Creek, its surrounds turned into a lovely park, play, camping area |
Before the gold rushes at Ballarat and
Bendigo, Burra was properous thanks to copper. Much of the old town
has been preserved yet this is not a museum town. These beautiful buildings house 21st
century families and businesses.
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| Burra Town Hall |
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| Catholic Church, Burra - one of the very many seen during this trip dedicated to St Joseph |
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| Burra business premises |
Other than a bit of a wander around the
town itself, I visited the old mine site primarily to see the Cornish
style engine house. And the reason for wanting to see that had
nothing to do with history and everything to do with the TV show Grand
Designs which showed the conversion of one such building into a home,
complete with discussion about where to place the stairs to minimise
loss of living area!
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| Engine house |
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| View of the now water-filled old mine from a window in the engine house. No way was I going out on one of those balconies! |
A short drive to Mintaro brought me to
Martindale Hall, the home of various grandees from the
past. The sandstone Georgian building looks somewhat incongruous,
sitting in an Australian landscape, albeit with an English style garden surrounding the house.
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| Martindale Hall, Mintaro |
There is a very grand
entrance hall with magnificent staircase.
However, the rest of the rooms
make a large but liveable home rather than something completely over
the top.
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| This bath is so big that it could be turned into an endless lap pool! |
Outside, even the working buildings, garage, barn, etc, were beautiful, their honey-coloured stone glowing in the sunlight.
Later in the trip I saw a handful of flowering gums, but no gum nuts to match these beauties on trees lining the Martindale Hall driveway.
Having taken up much more time than
expected, I raced through Clare, a bustling metropolis compared to
most towns I'd passed through since leaving home, and cut across
country to Port Pirie where my mother had lived for a while as a
child. If she'd ever used the library, she would recognise it still –
it was still in use until 2010 when the new new library was opened.
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| Old Port Pirie Library |
I visited the art gallery / tourist info building where there was a good collection of recent works on show. I later learned this was part of the Flinders Ranges A Brush With Art annual event across a dozen galleries and spaces. I loved this, a cross between Aboriginal dot painting and pointillism, most notably practised by Georges Seurat.
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| Painting detail |
I chanced upon the new library by fluke. From the art space, thinking a coffee might be nice, I saw what looked like a small shopping arcade. That was the library! The new library looks lovely from a
patron's perspective but a chat with a librarian amongst the shelves
revealed a few problems. On the plus side, it appears to be an extension to an old railway station. Looking through
the far end library windows, it does seem like you're part of the station
as you look down the platform.
I visited the local museum, housed in
the old main railway station, a grand building whose tower I climbed (via ladder-like stairs that I tried not to think about) for a murky view of the city through very grubby windows.
The museum also housed a schoolroom of
a bygone era. The teacher needs some remedial maths lessons!
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| Spot the mistake! |
Finally, on to Port Augusta. On the way out of town I stopped by Solomontown Beach - a pleasant place to picnic, perhaps, but not inviting to swim .... too close to the port area.
Just up the road I turned into Port Germein briefly - to see its jetty disappearing off into the distance.
After that I had to skip several more small towns I'd planned to have a drive-by look at, aiming
once again to beat the lengthening shadows and kangaroos.
On today's drive, the ground had become much less wet and canola was blooming everywhere.
Tonight I
was staying in a conventional motel. I was alarmed to see a busload
of Chinese tourists. I wasn't planning to have breakfast at the motel
anyway. My consternation was at learning they would be departing at
5am. What time would they start packing and boarding the bus with how
much excited chatter?
Well, as it happened, it bucketed rain
from the wee small hours, blotting out the sounds of packing, and of people who would have boarded the bus in one mad dash. The rain woke
me early, not the tourists!
