Day 9 - Peterborough to Eudunda

On the road from Peterborough, passed through scenic wheat / sheep areas. Lots of deserted old farm cottages, as the small farms have been combined into much larger properties. Great wide, open spaces. A different sort of scenery from coastal NSW - such a sense of distance and spaciousness. Not at all boring or repetitive.

First stop was Terowie, which has special railway significance - it is possibly the most extreme example of railway waste, stupidity and inefficiency I've ever heard of, although it did keep a huge number of people employed. Check out the photo of the plaque which explains what went on at Terowie for about 100 years, then compare to the next photo to see all that's left today

Terowie itself is practically a ghost town with only a handful of buildings left

After this, on to historic town of Burra. This was an important copper mining and refining town for 30 years from 1845, and did for SA what gold did for some of the other states.  We purchased a Burra Passport to visit many of the historic attractions - some have guides, and some are self guiding, but can only be accessed using the key provided with the passport - a clever idea.

We visited Morphett's Enginehouse Museum, which has been restored to its former magnificence, unfortunately without the beam engine originally fitted to pump water out of the deep copper mines

The photo below shows a model of how the engine house would have once looked with its beam engine installed.

We also visited the Bon Accord Mine Complex which included an impressive diorama of the whole Burra copper mining operation

We also explored the underground passageways of the old Unicorn Brewery cellars

Then the Redruth Gaol, which was used in the filming of the movie Breaker Morant

A special highlight of the Burra visit was our family connection. We discovered that Geoff's great grandfather, John Dunstan, was mayor of Burra in 1885, before moving to Broken Hill and being mayor of that city in 1899 -  1900. 

John and his wife Susan (nee Williams) arrived in South Australia in 1851 from Cornwall. His youngest son Keith was Geoff's grandfather. We also found the office of Sara & Dunstan, built in 1876, for the building, timber and iron merchant business. Apparently there was once also a steam sawmill and timber yards in the site

From Burra we continued on through the wide open spaces towards Eudunda, which is to be our base for a couple of days

On of the 'inventions' of this trip has been the "FU Special", to be enjoyed at the end of the day. Take a shot of Sheridan's, pour over ice, top up with Farmer's Union strong iced coffee. Bliss after a day on the road