Excursion destination „Australia’s Little Cornwall„
Moonta inspires Bushwalker to „educational walks“

Adelaide—Bushwalkers are ra­pidly ap­proa­ching the South Australian German Association (SAGA) on their 800^th walk — not coun­ting the num­e­rous group ou­tings and mul­ti-day camps. The 1200-ki­lo­me­ter Heysen Trail has be­en prac­ti­ced by the hi­king group for­med in 1991 bet­ween 1999 and 2010. After their in-depth week-long April trip to Moonta, Bushwalkers are cer­tain that in fu­ture they will be in­cre­asing­ly or­ga­ni­zing „edu­ca­tio­nal hi­kes“ in South Australia.

Moonta forms on the Yorke Peninsula tog­e­ther wi­th Kadina and Wallaroo the trio „Little Cornwall“. The tou­risti­cal­ly in­te­res­t­ing Moonta 163 ki­lo­me­ters nor­thwest of Adelaide is a po­pu­lar sea­si­de re­sort wi­th beau­tiful be­a­ches and good fi­shing. With the dis­co­very of rich cop­per ore de­po­sits in 1861, thou­sands of mi­ners ar­ri­ved in the area, ma­ny of them from Cornwall. For 5 shil­lings they work­ed dai­ly for up to ten hours. Only in the 1920s, the mi­nes we­re ab­an­do­ned be­cau­se of the col­lap­se of cop­per pri­ces and ri­sing la­bor cos­ts. From its heyday as a mi­ning town, Moonta has pre­ser­ved ma­ny so­lid stone buil­dings, the All Saints Church, the char­ming town squa­re, a pic­tures­que town hall, the his­to­ric train sta­ti­on, the pump house, va­rious man­ho­les and mi­ning offices.

Since 2017, the Moonta Mines be­long to the National Heritage and are thus of out­stan­ding im­portance for the na­tio­nal he­ri­ta­ge of Australia — and on the „Walk the York Trail“ ac­cor­ding to hi­king gui­de Hermann Schmidt „an ex­cel­lent hi­king de­sti­na­ti­on“. With la­te sum­mer tem­pe­ra­tures and clear ski­es, the Bushwalkers of the SAGA ma­de ex­ten­si­ve hi­kes bet­ween Moonta and Wallaroo in the area and on the beach for th­ree days.

The in­s­truc­ti­ve tours plan­ned by Dietmar Henning we­re par­ti­cu­lar­ly well re­cei­ved — in the cen­ter: the ap­pro­xi­m­ate­ly one-hour dri­ve of the Moonta Mines Tourist Railway th­rough the his­to­ric Moonta Mines. The ap­pro­xi­m­ate­ly 16-ki­lo­me­ter track be­g­ins and ends at the Town Hall, built in 1885, and pas­ses ma­ny his­to­ric sites, in­clu­ding se­ve­ral churches: the Methodist Church, the Bible Christian Church and the All Saints Anglican Church (all built in 1873), the St Francis of Assisi Catholic Church (1869), the Moonta Mines Methodist Church, the Site of Primitive Methodist Church and the Site of Bible Christian Church (all 1865) as well as the East Moonta Methodist Church (1872), the Cross Roads Methodist Church and the Cross Roads Primitive Methodist Church (bo­th 1873). „Australia’s Little Cornwall“ al­so en­chan­ted the Bushwalkers th­rough the Moonta Mines Museum, Blacksmith’s Shop, Miner’s Cottage and Garden, Sweet Shop and the Family Resource Center. With this fa­sci­na­ting „Cornish cop­per mi­ning histo­ry and he­ri­ta­ge“ the Bushwalkers want to or­ga­ni­ze their camps in the fu­ture usual­ly as edu­ca­tio­nal mi­gra­ti­ons, says Schmidt.

Moonta’s „his­to­ric tour“ saw them em­bark on a land­scape con­ser­va­ti­on pro­gram known to the Bushwalkers for main­tai­ning their Heysen Trail sec­tions in Myponga and Inman Valley: Ruth Hamann and Doris Muench coll­ec­ted around 50 ki­lo­grams of for­eign pla­s­tic was­te and wa­ter from the Moonta beach dis­po­sed of it pro­fes­sio­nal­ly. „Plastic harms the en­vi­ron­ment,“ ex­plains Schmidt, and na­tu­re is not a gar­ba­ge dump. ✻

Publication

Print: Trailwalker Magazine, Issue 149, Spring 2018, p. 30 [85/3/2/ – ].
On-li­ne: ⭱ E‑Paper Trailwalker Magazine, Mon­day, 10 Sep­tem­ber 2018. Retrieved New Year’s Day, 1 Janu­ary 2024.