Moonta Mines Tourist Railway: Amber takes a ride in the Copper Coast region of the Yorke Peninsula South Australia
For modern day school kids, an excursion to the historic Moonta Mine site is a great day out. But for the kids living here a bit over a century ago life was very different. As many as 2,000 men and boys worked long tortuous hours in the giant Moonta Cooper Mines.
It all began in 1861 when Paddy Ryan, an Irish shepherd stumbled across of lump of copper in a wombat hole. Our guide, Trevor Gibbons says the timing was perfect because at the time, South Australia was suffering poor crop returns and a manpower drain to the Victorian goldfields.
The 50 minute train ride follows a 5-kilometre track through what's left of the old mine site. Trevor Gibbons, Guide: "It was a very large mine with some 60 or 70 kilometres of workings under the ground. And there was something like 60 mines, vertical mine shafts on the mine site."
Moonta grew into a town of 12-thousand people and was biggest country town in the state. By the 1880s the population had almost doubled to 20,000. In 1876 the mine became the first Australian company to pay a 100 million-pound dividend.
Trevor Gibbons, Guide: "What a successful story it was - in the first 12 months they took 5,5000 tons of almost pure copper out of the mine and made a revenue of 67,000 Pounds - which of course was a fortune in those days. So it all took off from there."
It was tough, dirty and dangerous work but it attracted miners from the other side of the world who brought with them their techniques and their traditions.
Trevor Gibbons, Guide: "When they discovered all this copper of course they needed miners. Now Cornish miners are known as the best hard rock miners in the world. They were the best miners they could get so they brought them out here with their families, their children and all their worldly possessions and they came here to live in Moonta."
The train takes you through some fascinating mining remnants like the precipitation works - a technique used at the turn of last century to recover the copper left in the giant tailing heaps. In an amazing process, saltwater was pumped from the gulf and mixed with sulphuric acid.
Trevor Gibbons, Guide: "Here comes the tricky bit, when they got the tanks full of copper sulphate they threw in scrap metal - wagon wheels, plough shears, bed heads, door knobs, bike frames - anything that had steel or metal in it.
"You might recall from your chemistry classes if you get a piece of steel and put it in the copper sulphate solution when you pull it out it'll be coated in copper. And that's basically the process. They filled the tank and the canals with copper sulphate, threw in scrap steel, the copper sulphate reacted with the iron, the copper precipitated out and the steel rusted away."
By using this method they recovered nearly 20,000 tons of copper from the tailings heaps and the slime pits. But the boom times ended and the mine closed in 1923 thanks to falling copper prices and lower yields.
But Moonta's pride in its mining heritage remains strong and there are moves to have the mine site, along with the Burra Monster Mine, put on the National Heritage list. You can see it for yourself on the narrow gauge tourist train that begins and ends outside the National Trust museum in the old Moonta Mines School. The train runs in the afternoons on weekends, Wednesdays, public holidays and daily during school holidays. If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au
Moonta Mines Tourist Railway
Sat & Sun 1pm, 2pm & 3pm Wed 2pm & 3pm
Public Holidays & School Holidays
Ph 8825 1891Published 28th June 2009
