One of my favourite country towns in South Australia is Moonta which is situated on the Yorke Peninsula.

I guess it would be about 2-3 hours  from Adelaide by Road.

Copper ore was discovered  at Moonta in a wombat hole in the mid nineteenth century and so began 60 to 70 years of booming activity in the town.

Moonta became the 2nd largest town in South Australia after Adelaide.

Thousands of “Cousin Jacks” were brought from Cornwall to mine the Ore in and around Moonta.

They had a lot to put up with, disease, disasters and about 40 hotels in the town, some no more than a tent. But they did have a great sense of community.

They set up their various Guilds and Friendly Societies all designed for the betterment of the mine workers and their familes.

The genesis of the Labor Party in South Australia was driven by the Unions in Adelaide and the miners in Moonta.

However, in the 1920s the price of copper crashed  worldwide and the town of Moonta came crashing down as well.

The industrialists upped stumps tore down their infrastructure, sold off whatever they could as scrap and walked out of Moonta with no livelihood left for the thousands of Cornish miners who had left Britain for that new start in life in the Lucky Country.

But Moonta survived and is both a beautiful and interesting place to visit.

Pictured: One of the many memories of the old copper mining and smelting days of Australia’s Little Cornwall that surround the Moonta area in South Australia’s Copper Triangle.

derwombat