We purposely left Point Lowley (Fitzgerald Bay) on the morning before forecasted severe weather (gale force winds, massive tidal surges, dust storms, and rain) to get away from the coast and hopefully find more sheltered camping areas in our planned destination of Worlds End Reserve just outside Burra. Halfway to Burra after being sand blasted and nearly blown off the road we decided to bunker down at the Burra Showgrounds ($20/night for power). On arrival at the Showgrounds and checking out all the open sandblasted sites we decided on Plan B – the local caravan park that at least had some shelter, grass, power and water. We stayed three nights bunkered down, straying out for a bit of shopping, dinner at the pub, and a walk thru the town. We moved on to Worlds End free camp (23klm out from Burra) but liked Burra so decided to do a Passport Tour later in the week (more about that later).
So, the blog is broken into two parts – first about our camp
at Worlds End and secondly about our Passport Tour of Burra.
A few downsides of the camping area are - no chainsaws ☹,
no fish in the creek ☹, and no wood to be found (I did have one successful
wood scabbing expedition - finding a big bag of wood next to a campsite but
unfortunately a lot was painted so couldn’t be used). Fortunately, we still had a few nights of wood
from our successful wood scabbing at Point Lowley 😊.
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Burra is very old town which had its origins in the Burra Copper Mine which in its time was one of the largest in the world. In the 1970’s some residents decided that this rich history needed to be preserved, and since then, much restoration, preservation and collecting of artifacts has been undertaken by state government, local municipal bodies and a lot of volunteers. One initiative by the local shire was to introduce the “Passport Tour” where visitors for a small fee are given a key and map for exclusive entrance into many of the locked buildings and historical sites.
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The mad hatter |
We spent just over four hours doing the Passport Tour and were very impressed by the exhibits and sites – largely manned by local volunteers. The second part of the movie at the link below is a collection of photos of the tour which in isolation won’t be of too much interest (you have to be there 😊) but it will give you an idea of history of the mining era and the town of Burra. We liked Burra which is so full of history but also a very proud and supportive local community to preserve its past.
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If you are coming this way, it’s certainly worth a
stop-over.
Longish video is HERE – first audio track has nothing to do with the movie – I just like ZZ Top 😊