Boolcoomatta Station, South Australia, 29th March 2015

Some time after breakfast we headed off along the Kalabity Track and the Dome Rock Track.  Here is a view of some salt bush country with even some hills in the background.

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We stopped at the Dome Rock Copper Mine, in production from 1908 to 1969, producing 250 tonnes of copper over that period.  This trench was used in processing the ore.  First they crushed the ore and separated it into piles.  Then they pumped acidic water from the bottom of the mineshafts over the piles.  This caused copper to separate out in solution at the bottom of the piles.  That liquid was then removed to a concrete vat and combined with ribbon iron to form a copper cement.  Transport costs were high from such a remote location so this allowed them to transport a more concentrated copper product.

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I haven’t tried to present an overview of what the mine would have looked like because in many ways there is not a lot left.  One unfortunate event that happened shortly after Heritage Australia purchased the property was that former farm workers or managers stripped the mine site of metal to sell as scrap.

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A few of the rocks lying around spectacularly show the presence of copper.

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The whole area is very geologically rich, part of a large geological entity called the Curnamona Province.   This includes Mt Isa and also the Broken Hill lodes which are the largest accumulation of lead, zinc and silver in the world.  For example, there was a side road to a working gold mine on the way in to the homestead.

The rocks in the region are 1.7 million years old, then buried to a depth of 15 to 25 kilometres and subjected to great heat and pressure, before rising to the surface again due to mountain building events.

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These last two stones were cemented into a structure at the site.

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The Day Shaft, the main shaft at 220 feet deep (66 metres) is still there though boarded over and you can walk over the top of it and peer down though of course there’s not much to see down there.

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We went further on to Dome Rock itself.  I thought that was an interesting rock structure on the top and then I realised it was an eagle.  I changed to a long telephoto lens just before the eagle flew off but couldn’t get a shot in focus.  Then I realised I’d accidentally knocked the camera into macro mode.  Ah well, you can’t win them all.

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Here is our little group:  Myself, Jenny, Ingret, Jacqueline and Boris.  (Photograph by Boris).

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From Dome Rock, the countryside stretches away, very flat.

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Next we visited White’s Whim and Well.  This is the remains of the well, used to provide drinking water for cattle.  Someone had to live out here for many months of the year to operate it.  The well was dug by hand to a depth of about 25 metres (82 feet).

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A horse walked around a capstan to draw the water up.  This is the yoke for the capstan.

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We proceeded along the Wiperaminga Track and this is the saddle between the Wiperaminga and Eremophila tracks.

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Kangaroo footprints in the sand.

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After dinner and after the sun had gone down, we returned to the woolshed.  This is Mawson’s wheel with the homestead and the stars in the distance.

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Inside the woolshed by night.

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This was our final night for the workshop (though this is not the last post).

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