South Australia History

Moonta is a pretty coastal town that is steeped in history.

Just 165 kilometres from Adelaide, it's popular with holidaymakers, especially families. Nearby, you'll find Moonta Bay - a delightful holiday spot with excellent accommodation and facilities. Its sandy beaches and jetty make it a drawcard for fishermen, families and holidaymakers alike. While here, take the opportunity to go on a fishing charter, and use local knowledge to find secret fishing spots for a great catch.

Take to the Moonta Mines Walking Trails, or ride the 50-minute round trip on the Moonta Mines Tourist Railway. You can also discover more about the town at the Moonta Mines Museum.

Port Hughes is a close neighbour. The Port Hughes jetty offers excellent fishing opportunities, and the area is also popular with boat fishers and charter boats.

South Australia's second largest town in its hey day, Moonta was predominately settled by Cornish miner's and their families. Moonta owes most of its prosperity to the Moonta Mining Co.

The township of Burra is small, yet by far one of the most fascinating and impressive holiday destinations. With its relaxed atmosphere and friendly community spirit, a stay in Burra is a head-start along the road to total ambience. There is so much to see and experience, including: Burra’s History Heritage Group Tours Great Food Antiques and Collectables Nature Spots Horse Riding Scenic Drives Bicycle Hire Walking Trails Burra Markets Sport Art Gallery Festivals and Events Burra’s History Heritage The Burra Heritage Passport is the perfect way to experience the towns heritage. Visit 49 historical sites throughout the town, with keyed access to 8 locked sites including the Burra Mine area, Redruth Gaol and the Unicorn Brewery Cellars. Access to four fascinating Museums, each with their own individual theme, can also be incorporated into your passport trail or purchased as a Museum Pass. They focus on the life and times of the mining era and each do their part in contributing towards making your stay memorable.

A popular holiday town with good beaches, jetty and fishing, Moonta Bay is located on the shores of Spencer Gulf 168 kilometres from Adelaide. Its sandy beaches and jetty make this township a real draw card for fishermen, families and holidaymakers alike. While here, take the opportunity to go on a fishing charter, and use local knowledge to find the secret fishing spots for a great catch.

Moonta Bay and Port Hughes are close neighbours of the small business centre of Moonta. The towns are very popular with people in retirement and holidaymakers, especially families. The Port Hughes jetty offers excellent fishing opportunities, and the area is also very popular with boat fishers and charter boats. The beaches are stunning to look at with wide sandy shores, flat clear blue green water and are excellent for families; and the jetty provides beautiful views of the coast and beaches when looking back to the mainland.

Copper was discovered in the area in 1861 and led to the establishment of the Moonta Mining Company. An interesting way to take in the history of this mining region is on the tiny tourist train that runs on weekends. The train station is opposite the Moonta Mines National Trust Museum, in the former Moonta Mines School.

There is a range of accommodation available, some of which is within walking distance of sandy beaches, jetties and cafes.

TO SEE THE HISTORY OF THE PLACE

Open air shopping Malls in Australia all seem to be the same and most towns and cities have several. A pedestrianised street runs along a few blocks in the middle of the town and is lined with shops, cafes and restaurants. As there are no cars allowed, there's no need to cross the street or wait for the lights to change so you can spend a carefree afternoon just browsing, drinking or hanging out to watch other people browsing and drinking. More and more malls in Australia are adding wireless internet access, which means that it's also becoming increasingly common to see people sitting about on benches using their laptop and surfing the web, quite often for free. Rundle Mall in Adelaide is a large multi-storey undercover shopping centre, and is by far the largest I've seen for a while - in fact, it is considered by some to be the largest shopping precinct in Australia. Outside on the street, just in case you've got so caught up in the shopping and forgotten just how surreal Australia can be, visitors are welcomed by the sight of two giant stainless steel balls (The Mall's Balls) piled one on top of the other for no adequately explored reason. Inside, the place is huge - the entire ground floor is a food court selling every type of food imaginable, and above it are six floors containing every type of shop under the sun from supermarkets to sex shops. Next door is a smaller food court in which, when I returned here with Tanya in 2002, we spent virtually every day sitting and eating donuts and banana smoothies - something which vendors in Britain seem unable to make. Smoothies in Australia are generally made out of real fruit, and you can watch them stuff bananas into a blender and create the smoothie in front of you - in Britain, on the other hand, there seems to be a tendency to use banana flavour ice cream, which isn't quite the same thing. Adelaide is also famous for its statues. Wherever you go in the city, you'll find everything from statues recalling famous figures from Australian history to the bizarre street art that springs up everywhere. On the pedestrian precinct outside Rundle Mall, litter bins along the street are decorated with full size bronze statues of pigs standing on their hind legs and nosing through the rubbish, other bronze pigs just standing around waiting their turn. These pigs, I have learned since, all have names - Truffles, Horatio, Oliver and Augusta, should you wish to say Hello on your way through. Central Market is a large and diverse area of the city in which you can buy virtually anything you fancy to eat from the tons of speciality stalls selling anything from Cheese to Thai food. You can sit down to eat at a restaurant or scamper from stall to stall bargaining with the cheerful local vendors over vegetables you've never even heard of. The Market is surrounded by cafes, restaurants, fish and chip shops, and with Chinatown just around the corner you could easily spend your day browsing here and go straight on for a meal and a night out afterwards without having to go home in between.

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