After leaving Burra we travelled via Kapunda where we spent some time looking at the town. Kapunda was a copper mining town before Burra but in the end not as big a mine. It was also the home of Sir Sydney Kidman ( of cattle station fame ) for some time. The town and interpretive centre were great. Of course we couldn't leave without a look at the copper mine. The area was no where near as well preserve as in Burra but still worth the look. The "NO FOSSICK...

Today we went riding to the little village of Mintaro which is not far from Burra. It has beautiful old bluestone and slate cottages and there is an operating slate mine. We turned up at the mine and some nice workers came out to see our bikes, next thing one of the workers was giving us a special tour of the slate mine and she gave us a free sample of slate for our rock collection. This is lovely dark blue slate that paves some streets in Adelaide, and is us...

Dave is right; Burra really is a living museum. Those old Cornish miners in the 1800s sure knew how to build beautiful buildings out of the local stone. We have bought a key system to get us into a range of tourist history sites around the district, which means we use a key to get into old buildings, cellars underground, a gaol, museums etc. Plus today we rode out to the main old mine working, which ended up being an open cut in later years. The pumping machinery...

The trip from Mildura, Victoria to Burra, South Australia was very interesting. We stopped for lunch in Rennmark which would be worth a visit again one day. Situated on the Murray River, it was a very neat and pretty town. Since we were in the area I had wanted to go to Banrock Station ( of Banrock Station wines fame ). They have reportedly been doing wonderful things with restoring the wetlands on the Murray River. After another tussle with the GPS and a bit of...

We are packing up today, with a sad heart, after learning of the deaths of two of our fellow club members who were travelling to the AGM in Mildura. We have decided to go on to Burra, South Australia. We had some wonderful discoveries when we did a trip to the Victorian Mallee area to look into the location of Tom O'Louchlin's Solder settlement block in Wemen. Trish will write more about that once we are settled. Dave