Onto Burra

Tues 17 Mar That was Renmark then for the second time, so on we go. We are making for Burra about 210K away to a camp that has been recomended to us by a couple of nomads recently. We have been on the road for 20 min before the first navigational error. We miss a turn but it's O K as there is another that might get us onto the right road.... it does eventually.There is a place we would like to visit that we saw in the video the other day, called Overland Corner it consists of a couple of farm houses and a pub which is about to celebrate it's 150th birthday It's a couple of Ks off the main road and we arrive just as it opens. A coffee and a natter to the girl behind the bar who makes the place sound very friendly, though we can't work out where they get all their punters from. This could be the outbacks White Hart. Weare still following the Murray until we reach the town of Morgan where we turn north and say goodbye to the mighty river. The countryside from here on is typical outback Oz, nothing but scrub and bush and very flat for mile for mile after mile. As we head across the plains we can see Adelaide hills in the distance, though they arenorth of Adelaide by a long way.
Burra is a Heritage town famous for it's copper mines long ago and not vary big. Our campsite is 2 min walk from the town so we park up straight away which just as well as it is the last powered site available. The place is full of Rotarians. This place is miles from anywhere ....what are they all doing here? Again we are parked by a river, this time the Burra Creek and looks a bit mossie-fied! We head of into town where it seems to have quite a lot of thngs to see. It has 5 pubs for a start.
Wed 18 Mar Having a touristy day today.It's a short walk into town and at Tourist Info we buy a key for the day. This key opens the doors to different places on the 11k self guided heritage tour. It's a good idea as you don't feel under any pressure from guides or curators. You can stay or move on at your leisure. Site 1 is an old Copper mine a few Ks out of town. The whole area is famous for copper mines and many Cornish tin miners, and Welsh smelters came here to work 160 years ago. Whilst the history is very interesting the actual sites are in a poor state of repair , just holes in the groud or piles of stones resembling the shape of the buildings. It reminds us of the derelict villages from the clearances in Scotland but those are in a much better condition. A really impressive sight was an open cut mine dug to a depth of 100M and the underground mine was closed at 183M all dug with basic machinery. We went on to see the Police lock up and stables followed by Redruth Gaol where the movie Breaker Morant was filmed. We were confused at first as the Breaker Morant story took place in South Africa not South Australia. Hampton was our next stop more piles of rock, a derelict vilage. We saw Dugouts on the side of the river bank where miners lived at first as there was no housing. Very primitive and they must all have been quite short! We finished up at the cellars of the local brewery Unicorn which closed in 1902. Peter reckons he could still smell the beer down there A maze of tunnels with very dim lighting. Nothing much has altered in the cellars since they were built. We then set off on foot to find an apple wine/ cider factory but couldn't find it so went to the pub instead! An interesting and enjoyable day.