Delprat Underground Tourist Mine at Broken Hill: Ron Kandelaars visits this Outback City of NSW

When boundary rider Charles Rasp identified pieces of dark heavy rock and pegged a mining claim in an area known to pastoralists as Broken Hill in 1883, little did he know just how fabulously rich this ore body would turn out to be. By the time of Federation, Broken Hill supported a city of nearly thirty thousand people - the sixth largest in Australia.

Many were miners and part of their story is told at the old Delprat Shaft. It’s now a tourist mine but according to mine guide, Ron Schipanski, in the early days it was anything but a holiday.

“They introduced the contract system in 1892,” said Ron. “Contract means you get paid for what you do - do nothing you get nothing. They introduced the basic wage in Adelaide - nearly a pound a week. Here you could get a pound a shift by taking risks and getting killed.”

“It was good money but if you didn't do what you were told you were sacked. So for about thirty-six years it was just plain murder. Dust on the lungs, no meal time, you eat while you're working and all that sort of thing.”

Ron as a Broken Hill miner for eighteen years and another eighteen as an underground shift boss.

“Luckily when you're a shift boss you can retire early. I got out when I was fifty-four because all this modern … gear was coming in. When I retired twenty-two years ago there was two and a half thousand blokes underground. Today there’s only four hundred and those four hundred are getting one and a half million tonnes more than those two and a half thousand… because it’s so simple.”

Ron talks at the speed of a miner's jackhammer and he tells it like it is. When you join his tour expect to be kept on your toes.

“Today we're going down one hundred and thirty metres but in its heyday the Delprat Shaft sank to five hundred metres and this is one of the closest points to the line of load.”

It's a strange feeling as you descend into Delprat. During its one hundred and twenty year history thousands of miners have made the journey underground.

Once in the mine, Ron outlines the various metals sourced from the great lumps of ore. The lead zinc, silver, copper and gold unearthed from mines like this one led to an industrial boom with the construction of steelworks, coal mines and a smelter in South Australia.

“When a train is about two kilometres long it goes down to Port Pirie in South Australia where they've got the largest smelters in the world. They out the silver and gold etc. It takes days and days.” said Ron.

When he fires up the drill, the reality of mining becomes clear. Like a lot of the equipment down here, it’s incredibly dangerous and is deafening loud. At one point, Ron instructs us to turn off our miner’s lights. He then lights a candle to show us what it was like for the first miners and he relates a sobering fact.

“I’ve been underground for thirty six years and in that time there’s been one hundred and twenty one miners killed underground. I don't know half of them.”

But there's one he does remember - his brother Harold, who died in 1983. It's just one of the many stories, some funny, some very sad on the Delprats Mine Tour. For bookings contact 8088 1604.

Delprat Underground Tourist Mine
Broken Hill
Open Daily
Ph (08) 8088 1604