PORT PIRIE - with MARK BICKLEY and KEITH CONLON

You can see the chimney stack for miles, and then the silos take shape. They unmistakably identify one northern city, Port Pirie. It's Crows football star and premiership Captain Mark Bickley's hometown, and so we asked him for a personalised Postcards tour.

On the new boardwalk lookout across the wide blue tidal river from the town, Mark introduced us to the place. "It has about 16,000 people, it's about 220km from Adelaide or about 2.5 hours drive north to Spencer Gulf". And why is it called Pt Pirie? "Because a Captain Thomson sailed his schooner "John Pirie" in here looking for a port to take wool from the Crystal Brook run. That was in 1845".

I asked Mark about the enormous grey concrete chimneystack rising from the smelting works that dominate the view. He reckoned it was about 250 metres high, the length of Footy Park, plus another 30 or 40 metre kick!

We wanted to catch up with the personal side of his town, and so we called on his parents, Max and Barbara. Naturally we stopped for a cuppa and a slice of finger bun, and relived the magic moments of two Crows partnerships with Mark as Captain.

Where did his senior football career begin? Mark took the Postcards team to Memorial Oval with its 1920's decorated grandstand. "This is where I started playing for Solomontown when I was 16" he said as we walked across the ground. It was where he was decorated with the Madigan Medal too - the youngest player ever to receive it. Mark told me that Pirie is a very active sports community, with all sports well represented. Soccer is big because of the longstanding Italian and Greek communities, who also add to the cultural side of the town. The Blessing of the Fleet, for instance, is a major festival.

In every way, the smelter looms large in Pt Pirie's past, present and future. And it gave our footy hero his first job. "When I left school, I started as an apprentice electrician here. It was a big and impressive place to walk into".

We were both awestruck as we watched a stoker shoving molten lead along a channel in the blast furnace - the smelter itself. The Pasminco works have just been upgraded, and they employ about 900 people in 12-hour shifts. Works tours should start again soon.

"Let's go BJ" shouted Mark as we hitched a ride with his old mate, the retired copper, out to his favourite crabbing grounds. The trip from the boat ramp took us past two big tugs. "The port sees about 70 or 80 big ships each year", Mark told me. "They take a quarter of a million tonnes of lead to overseas markets (for making batteries) and heaps of grain from the silos".

As we passed the old main street of Pt Pirie, we shared yarns about its early days after it was surveyed 130 years ago. Ellen Street used to flood on a king tide before it was built up. Further out along the channel that takes the big freighters out to deep water, the view of the Southern Flinders is quite beautiful.

A stretch of blue water, the pale browns of the farms, and the bush of the ranges made a great postcard. They were upstaged up close, however, when we passed a pod of six dolphins lazing in the shallows. They obligingly circled the boat for our "camo" Jeff Clayfield to get some captivating shots for the show. "BJ" sure knows where to find the blue swimmer crabs, because we soon had a boxful, and turned for home and the search for Bickley boyhood memories.

He could hardly forget the magnificent old railway station in Ellen Street. It is an extraordinary piece of Victorian pavilion style architecture, and Mark recalls climbing the steep stairs to look out of the clock tower as a primary student. He was born only a few years after the last train steamed down the heritage-rich main street in 1965.

The station is now a fascinating National Trust Museum, which stretches into the adjacent old Customs House and Police Station. Mark also remembers the next Port Pirie Station, that's also changed jobs. "I caught the Indian Pacific from here and sat up all the way to Perth, but now you can see it's our Tourism and Arts Centre"

The architecture symbolises the town's past, with a pointy prow of a ship projecting past an entrance ramp that shows the three railway gauges that once met here inset with slate "rails". We stopped for a quick meal in the Junction Express - a set of dining carriages permanently parked along the long platform before thanking the local hero for his Postcard tour. And we agreed with Mark Buckley as he hoped you would soon be coming to share in the joys of his hometown - Pt Pirie.

Details:
Port Pirie Regional Tourism and Arts Centre
(Open 7 days)
3 Mary Elie Street
Port Pirie. S.A. 5540
Ph: 08-8633-0439
Freecall 1800-000 424
Fax: 08-8632-1136