Gismo Queen and her King

Flinders Ranges - Friday 14th August

A nice day in the Flinders Ranges today, although still a little cool. No more rain, although Wednesday's rain must have been significant as several of the scenic drives we could have done still have "road closed" signs up.

So instead we headed up to Blinman, a small ex-mining town 60m north of Wilpena Pound. They have recently opened the old copper mine up for tours so we were booked in. I arrived at this little tin shed (formerly the CWA shed and then the library)

to find a bevy of activity out the front as a group of sculptors were working on a copper "kibble bucket" (used by the miners in the day). The tour guide then offers me a piece of rock, and told me to put it in my mouth. I was a little sceptical, but did as suggested and it turned out to be rock chocolate! Greg was equally sceptical when I took his bit back to the car!

We headed out of town for 1km to the mine, put on our helmets, hung up our tags, and headed underground. It was very interesting as we headed into the main adit, and were then able to look up (and down) the original shaft.
Susan, our guide, then took us through more tunnels, down declines (some reinforced with timber where there was a fault line), and up inclines. There was still some copper left, but apparently not enough left to warrant re-opening the mine.
It was quite amazing to us that the local Progress Association have been responsible for getting the mine re-opened as a tourist attraction. Blinman has a population of 18, with a more regional community of about 75, so there is no Council.  The Progress Association has done a lot for this little town and we were very impressed.

After our hour underground, including hanging out in a crib where we talked about Cornish pasties, we headed to the local General Store, where they still make a genuine Cornish Pasty. Greg got the last one - the genuine style of it means that miners could eat it with one hand, holding the pastry fold (bigger in the olden days!) and starting from one end that had the meat and vegetables, but the other end had the fruit - the dessert end!
I had a normal pie but settled for the quandong pie for dessert - a native peach fruit. It was yum! And we both washed them down with surprisingly good coffee.

We stopped at some of the scenic points of interest on the way back, although we did many of them when we were here in 2011. Here's some shots of the Pound itself:



When we got back to camp, we started up a campfire, had a cuppa, and a chat with a friendly camper as the sun set. We then decided to eat out, and headed down to the resort restaurant for a very nice meal.

posted by Tracey @ 9:43 pm