Port Augusta to Burra

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Wednesday 22nd June 2011
We have spent the day packing up - we are going to leave Port Augusta this time.
John finished working for Jimmy Martin yesterday - Port Augusta has been very good to us with the weather being a little cold but very little rain and nice sunny days. We have had plenty of sight seeing to do with plenty of day trips around the county side but we are ready to carry on with our travels. We are going to start heading north towards Queensland where we will look for some more work where the weather is a little warmer.
I am recovering from a fall last week where I landed face down on the cement out side the caravan needing to have a gash over my eye glued up. So of course I have had a nice black eye for about a week but it is now going a nice yellow as it heals.
Thursday 23rd
Left Port Augusta and headed to Burra - checked into the Burra Caravan Park ($20 pn, stayed 2 nights).
A very nice small Shire run caravan park right on the Burra River. Visited the Visitors centre and paid $20 per person for a pass and key to the Heritage Trail visiting many sites around town.
Friday 24th
Burra was originaly a coal mining town and the community has fixed up the buildings still existing at the mine site and the pass lets us visit the mine and many other sites around town.
The people of Burra have carried out a lot of work with renovating and restoring a lot of the very old buidings. The Heritage Trail took us all day to check out and we did not do all the tours.
An excelllent days touring.
The photos will give you a little idea of the some of the excellent restoration work which has been carried out around town. There is a lot of beautiful old houses and buidlings all around the town.
The Miners Dugouts were amazing - in the early days of the mine there were lots of miners and very little housing so the miners dug out underground house's along the river and everytime it flooded their furniture and personal stuff just floated down the river. When the river dried up they went along and picked up their goods and set up house again - amazing - John said he is glad he lives in this era and not back in those days.
The mines had a very strong influence of miners from Cornwall so the Cornish influence is still very strong today so we bought Cornish parsty's for tea from the local bakery - very, very nice.

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