The 'Journey' has begun!!!! aka Chrissyb's USA Adventure!!!

Well girls I'm finally got myself organised enough to sit down and tell you about my home town and a little of it's history.

Burra is a small town situated about a two hour drive north west of the capital city of South Australia, Adelaide.  It nestles in the crucible of the hills that surround it.  At the moment, the total population is 1500 persons.  This is a view of Burra from the main road heading down into the town.

Burra was settled after a shepherd found some brightly colored outcrops of copper in the Burra creek in 1845.  After a survey, the mine area measuring 8 x 4 miles was purchased in August of that year at a cost of 20,000 pounds and became known as the Burra Burra Monster Mine.  It rapidly developed into one of the great copper mines of the world and the town that grew because of it, was by 1851 Australia's largest inland town.  The influence of Burra on the economy of South Australia and on mining in Australia gives the town considerable historic importance and is on the Register of The National Estate and many of it's buildings on the List of State Heritage Items and in 1993 the town was declared a State Heritage area.

Most of the 1,000 men and boys employed by the mine were Cornish and so a lot of the housing cottages are very similar to the early Cornish cottages found in Cornwall, England.  Today, the row houses of these miners are still standing and are used as accommodation for holiday makers and weekend visitors.

The mine was worked in the traditional way of digging shafts and the pumps that were used were imported from Cornwall.  They were used to pump water from the mine and this was used to power the waterwheels which in turn powered the crushers and other machinery.

By the mine was closed in 1877 it was being worked as an open cut mine.  When copper prices were at their height, the mine was reopened in 1971 and closed again in 1981.  It is now tourist attraction.

One of the old pump houses has restored and rebuilt and is now a museum.  On the top floor, where the pump shafts were situated, you can step out and overlook the whole of the open cut area that is now filled with water that is fed from and underground spring.

The pump house.

The view of the open cut filled with water.  The lake that it forms is used by diving schools for deep water training because it is so cold.

This is the old powder house where the explosives were stored. This building is still totally intact and is very interesting to view because of the way it was built.  It is a long way from the rest of the mine for safety reasons.

The day I went to take photos, this little fellow jumped in front of my car.

  The photo is not the best as I didn't even have time to focus properly!  When he stopped on the other side of the road, I took this one.  He looks like a young one who has been recently tipped from the mothers pouch.

Take care all, until next time.

Love n hugs.  Chrissy

The other day my DH came home and told me that there was a Craft Fair happening in my town on the following weekend.  I asked where it was to be held and he, like most men, didn't know.  I asked him to check the town notice board on his way to the shop and ring me with the information.  He did just that......it was being held in the historic Redruth Gaol.   Taking the opportunity, as I do, to get some good pics, I grabbed my bag, a carryall and the camera and set off to see what was on offer both photograpically and craft wise.

 When I got there, I found that there was also a display of the town's fire engines including the very first one ever purchased...they were amazing!

The Redruth Gaol was built in 1856 and was the first erected outside Adelaide.  It originally provided accommodation for the gaolkeeper, turnkey and thirty prisoners both male and female.  It was closed in 1894 and the prisoners were transfered to Gladstone Gaol. 

The Gaol was renovated and reopened as a Girls Refomatory in 1897 and was finally closed as a place of incarceration in 1922 and is now under the care of the National Trust.

This shows the cells and part of the exercise area for the men.  The women were housed in exactly the same type of area but the other side of the prison so there was no interaction.

This is what was once the bathroom........it is called a long drop.  The birds now use it as a warm dry roost.

   Can you imagine being surrounded by walls that are fifteen foot high and topped with broken glass as a deterent not to try to scale them......must have been truly terrible!

When I was leaving the Fair, and yes I did purchase a couple of things......I couldn't resist.......I saw these pink and grey Galahs in the top of one of the trees.  They had young ones and it was lovely to see.

Take care all!  Till next time.

Love n hugs.  Chrissy

It's been awhile since I posted so I guess I should bring you up to speed.  I've been doing a whole lot of travelling back and forth to the city in the past few weeks and have gotten some great shots of the scenery and sunsets as I drive........no, I stop the car first.....lol........but the different times of day and weather conditions really change how things look.  Just outside my town there is a smallish shallow lake and each time I drive past it, the breeze is rippling the surface.........it looks great but one day as I drove past, there was absolutely  no air movement and the surface was like a mirror.....and wouldn't you know, the only time I didn't have the camera with me I could have gotten an amazing shot!!!!  So...the point to all this is, coming back from the city last Monday evening, you guessed it, no breeze and the surface of the lake was so still......it was beautiful.  Summer is here and the land has turned its usual gold and brown as the crops are ready for harvest................these are what I got.

On the way home after celebrating GS's birthdays I couldn't resist stopping to get these shots....the colors were so beautiful.

And a bit later, they turned to this.....................

I will admit, we do get some pretty spectacular sunsets.

Love n hugs.  Chrissy