Back to Mt Barker

On the way out of Moonta we visited the 400-ish unmarked child-size graves were still visible in the Moonta Cemetery, courtesy of the typhus and cholera epidemics that regularly affected the area until reticulated water finally arrived in 1890.  And that was only the graves that remained visible after 100+ years.

 

This was the waiting hut, where the bereaved could wait while the coffin made its slow journey from the church to the graveyard.

With that sobering start out of the way we took a slight detour via Maitland, where we had Morning Coffee. Maitland was designed by the same person who designed Adelaide and had the same most excellent parkland encircling the city centre. The parkland was somewhat scruffier than Adelaide's, possibly because Maitland's population did not produce sufficient rates to maintain a large amount of parkland.  

From Maitland we finished our crossing of the Yorke and visited the Ardrossan lookout. I expected a hill because that's how lookouts usually work, but instead found myself on top of a dolomite mine slag heap from which I could see the white silos of Ardrossan and the blue sweep of the Gulf St Vincent with a distant fringe of land.  Mining trucks, reduced by distance to Lego size, zoomed busily across the Yorke highway and down to the port to stockpile dolomite for the next available ship. 

To the East, Ardrossan's wheat silos and dolomite stockpiles. Salt is exported out of Ardrossan as well, from the salt works to the north.

 

To the West, the dolomite mine.

There was no more excitement after Maitland: in short order we drove past the salt works at Price, didn't bother to pop in to Federation park again, ate a very big sandwich from the Port Wakefield bakery, collected some keys for our next house sit, and settled into our Air BnB in Mt Barker. We'd stayed there before, so we already knew where the teaspoons were and that it would be quicker to walk over for family dinner rather than driving.

Port Wakefield is where the Walk the Yorke starts.  You can Bike the Yorke too.  It's on my to-bike list.

There wasn't much else to say about Monday.

I'll see you on the other side of work.