The Burra and Clare Valley

---

Friday 21st May 2010

“All roads lead to Burra” says the brochure advertising the town and that's where we headed for today. The reason why we're headed that way is that Judy has family tree connections to some of the early settlers there. Copper was mined in this area in the mid 1800s and she is related to some of the Cornish miners who came here to work.

At the entry to Kapunda we stopped at a display by the side of the road and read about the miners of the early days, continuing on to walk around an old mine on the edge of town. The Kapunda Information Centre has an interesting display of how life was in the past, the exhibition set up in the cellar of the building. This building also doubles as the town library plus it sells local handicrafts and has a selection of home-cooked biscuits and cake for sale. We walked out with a delicious looking date cake for our morning tea.

Just after lunch we reached Burra and booked into the only caravan park in town. It only has 28 powered sites but we were lucky enough to get a large site backing onto a small river. This park is one of the tidiest and cleanest parks we have been in as well as the cheapest at only $20/night.

The cemetery was the first place we visited and after walking around the old tombstones for about 30 minutes Rags found what we had been hoping to find - 4 headstones dating back to 1890 . From these Judy was able to correct some of the data she had.

Back at camp we met up with two couples from WA, one a Coromal caravan dealer in Perth & Mandurah, the other a retired manager of ARB. Pity we didn't meet them before we bought our van and set up the Jeep! They were good company though and we spent a couple of hours with them during the '5 o'clock sundowner' session.

Saturday 22nd May 2010

As Clare and the Clare Valley region were only 41kms away we 'had' to go to to check out the town and some of the wineries. The number of wineries we have visited is growing but just as the excuse for reading Playboy was for the articles, so us going to wineries is for the splendid old buildings and the beauty of the area.

Clare itself was nothing out of the ordinary as a centre for the surrounding district with all the service centres and shops. Tourists are catered for very well, with many places to eat and the ubiquitous clothing shops. One thing we noticed and agree with, is that the facades of the shops are in keeping with the old, many retaining the original frontages and modernising the interiors. This trend seems to be common in SA and Victoria.

Sevenhill, the oldest winery in the Clare Valley, was our first stop. This winery was established in 1851 by Austrian Jesuits who had fled Europe with others to escape religious & political oppression. The production of sacramental wine was why it was originally established, now it has a much wider range of wines and markets.

We samples a few of the wines, in rather generous serves, after which we walked around the winery gardens and visited the striking church building. 41 Jesuit priests lie in the crypt accessible from the outside. Judy was really taken by the church and the beautiful morning we were experiencing, surprising Rags by saying she could imagine getting married there.(to him he hoped!)

Tim Adams Wines, our next stop, was quite a disappointment in regard to the building, after Sevenhill, but the wines we tasted made the stop worthwhile. As we were driving we couldn't indulge too much, so off to the next winery Leasingham Wine. This we found was closed for renovations so we returned to Clare for lunch at the Tamiga Hotel. As a salad and an ice-cream bar was part of the deal we made this our main meal of the day, dinner tonight being 'whatever'.

Knapstein Wines, right in Clare was next, the fact that it was also a brewery being the reason Rags gave for visiting. Here, Judy found a late picked riesling she enjoyed so a couple more bottles are to come back in the van. The other wines were very drinkable as was the fruity ale made there, but we can only take home so much!

Last for the day was Annie's Lane at Quelltaler Winery. Here, once again we enjoyed sampling the range of wines there, commenting on the fact that some of our friends would love to be here. Its been great being able to put a picture in our minds of some of the wines we have heard of and enjoyed previously, of where they come from .

We returned to Burra via Mintaro, an historic town with its intact Victorian character. Here we stopped at the hotel and had a cappucino in the pub sunny garden before detouring to the splendour of Martindale Hall. After taking several photos we continued back to Burra.

---

Photos

The Cornish Miner
This gigantic statue is a tribute to the Cornish miners who settled in this area and is located near the entrance to Kapunda.

Kapunda open cut mne
Water in the old mne

Mine Chimney
This chimney at Kapunda was built in 1850 using stone from local quarries.

Old Gaol at Burra
This is the Redruth Gaol made famous in the film Breaker Morant.

Miners' dugouts
Miners used to live in dugouts like these along the river. According to the 1851 cesnus out of a population of 4400, 1800 people lived in dugouts like this. They were very short people.

Monster Mine at Burra
The Burra mines supplied 89% of South Australia's and 5% of the world’s copper for 15 years and is credited with saving the state's economy.

St Aloysius' Church
This stunning church at Sevenhill was completed in 1875 and features some wonderful slate floors frm nearby Mintaro.

Old bottles used for altar wines at Sevenhill
Sevenhill Winery was established by the Jesuits in 1851, making it the oldest winery in the Clare Valley. It originally produced only altar wnes.

Unique crypt
This crypt is the final resting place for 41 Jesuits and since 1901 only those who died at Sevenhill are buried here.

Annie's Lane
Rags could quite get used to wine tasting every day!