Here and there: Eleven - Wallaroo, South Australia

A short while ago I took a drive north to a small coastal town favoured by many as a short-stay holiday spot, long weekends and the like. I was only there for the day but the 320 kilometre round-trip was well worth it - superb weather, good company and a pretty legit lunch.

I went for a walk around the foreshore area and onto the wharf where a bulk carrier was loading grain; I find heavy industry interesting often marveling at the big things human being devise and the ship certainly was big, as were the grain silos from which the grain was being loaded.

This area has been used to gather grain from the surrounding farms since around 1860 and back in the day was connected to the State's Capital City, Adelaide, by a rail line for the purpose of bulk haulage; now there's no rail link just ocean-going bulk carriers fed by long covered conveyor lines and they ship out from there directly to their markets be it overseas or domestically.

Obviously access close to the ship was not possible but you can see in these images where the grain silos (above) sit right on the shore; these are fed by road-going bulk haulers, massive road-train trucks that carry the grain from farms to the silo storage.

From there, the conveyor carries the grain out over the water to the bulk carrier ships and it's dumped directly into the hold. Below is a panoramic image showing the process left to right.

I love towns like this one, they make me feel like I'm home.

They're often deserted in the off season but at school holidays or long weekends numbers swell and the towns come alive. This one has a particularly popular beach called North Beach upon which one can drive one's vehicle right onto and the little shop right on the beach does a pretty legit fish and chips! (I showed a couple images from there on the beach in a former post.)

This region was also rich in copper, which opened up the land in the first place, and my ancestors (Cornish miners) arrived here in the early 1800's to work the mines. It's called the Copper Coast for that reason, and the Copper Triangle because the three main towns that formed the heart of the copper industry. It's referred to as Little Cornwall due to the huge number of Cornish families that came to work the mines and to this day holds the world's largest Cornish festival every second year held over several days, the Kernewek Lowender Festival which translates to "Cornish happiness" festival.

Anyway, here's just a few snaps from my day trip out there and maybe I'll share some more from the festival as I went back there for one of the festival days and had a blast.