Gismo Queen and her King

Woomera and Roxby Downs - Wednesday 5th August

Up early for the 74km drive to Roxby Downs for the Olympic Dam mine tour. As luck would have it, these tours are held once a week on a Wednesday so we took advantage of this! We left the van in Woomera as we are staying here another night - didn't see the point in dragging the van down the road to Roxby Downs only to come back the same way tomorrow to continue our journey northwards up the Stuart Highway.

The 74km was as flat and treeless as the rest of the countryside around here. So it was somewhat of a surprise to arrive into a very modern, civilised town with lots of facilities. Roxby Downs is a town only 25 years old, which was expanded significantly in 1996, when a girlfriend of mine was based there working as a surveyor. Built by Western Mining to service the Olympic Dam mine, it now has its own Council servicing a very transient population, but consistently at about 4,000 people.

We started the tour with a couple of videos about the history of the mine and town in the rather beautiful visitor information centre. Then it was outside to the bus for the tour of the mine. Now we weren't allowed to take photos of the mine so you'll have to rely on my story telling.

An original 10 samples were taken in the 1980's to determine if sufficient ore was present to warrant mining attempts. The 10th one discovered good quantities so the first mine was sunk near a farm dam on the original pastoral lease - that dam was called Olympic Dam. These days, the mine is the 4th largest uranium mine in the world. They also extract copper, gold and silver from the ore so it is very profitable. Security is tight all over the site. They do all the processing on site so there are massive hoists, crushers, filters, mixers, and processing plants for the four minerals. We got to drive through and under massive infrastructure, alongside "big guggas" as I like to call them - the massive vehicles that move the extracted material to the train that transports it to the hoist. BHP Biliton, who now own the site, are very environmentally conscious and are doing a lot to monitor the environmental impact of their work on the local environment. Most of their water comes from the Great Artesian Basin although this is limited so they consider a lot of recycling options. After the mine, we travelled to a new reserve sponsored by BHP that is trying to reintroduce some species that were being affected by predators and the mine. Most of the fauna at that site are nocturnal so we couldn't see any, but we could see the mine in the distance!

BHP Biliton reckon there is possibly 200 years worth of ore left on this site so it seems as if Roxby Downs will exist for many years yet. It was a really interesting tour so we were fortunate that we were here on the right day of the week.

Upon return to the township, we had some lunch and a walk around the main street. We were then enjoying a coffee in a cafe when their fire alarm went off so we had to evacuate! That was our cue to leave and head back to Woomera! On the way, I was on the lookout for some good crops of Sturt's Desert Pea, which the tour guide had told us were growing on the roadside. She said there were also pink and yellow versions but I only saw the red ones - which is best for me anyway!

Back at the van, I put a load of washing on and went for a walk around town while the laundry was on. Compared to Roxby Downs which is so modern and vibrant, Woomera really is sad and has a real abandoned air. This was an abandoned apartment building......

....and here's the abandoned Catholic School. The State Public School still operates though.

I only saw one house with a front garden - as if most residents don't care enough to bother. Mind you, I guess most people aren't here long enough to bother. So many houses are empty anyway.

Back to the caravan park to move the washing to the dryer and have another coffee, before finishing off our interesting day quietly in the van. We have been listening to the audio book about Daniel Morcombe, the missing (eventually found murdered) Queensland teenager in 2003. It's also been very interesting.

posted by Tracey @ 6:39 pm