Nucaleena Mine: Blinman, in the Outback region of South Australia
A scenic flight over the Northern Flinders Ranges reveals that plenty of have ventured into the area in search of fortune and failed. A good example is the ruins of Artimore Homestead in the shadow of Mount Patawarta. It’s proof that despite some good early years - drought and inaccessible terrain were more than a match for many of the early pastoralists.
But take to the roads and 4WD tracks around Blinman and look beyond the spectacular scenery and you’ll gain an insight into the tenacity of those who were determined to exploit the potential riches contained within the layers of ancient sedimentary rock.
Postcards met up with Irving Cains, a man who has infinite respect for the pastoralists and miners of the Northern Flinders. He arrived in the 1980s and fell in love with the rugged landscape’s space and remoteness.
But as we bumped along the track in the relative comfort of his 4WD we wondered what the early Cornish miners thought when copper was discovered more than a hundred and fifty years ago.
“Once a few discoveries had been made it created a bit of a rush,” Irving explained. “Also at that time there was a downturn in mining in the UK at Cornwall so there were good prospects for miners of Cornish descent that would migrate to Australia.”
They certainly left their mark with a classic round Cornish chimney dominating the isolated valley at Nucaleena, about thirty kilometres north west of Blinman.
The Great Northern Mining Company set up operations here in early 1860 and the first signs were good. Sixteen men extracted about one hundred tonnes of copper ore in five weeks.
In its heyday about eighty men laboured long and hard in and around the hill behind the beautiful old Cornish chimney. They drove shafts and drives down and into the hill following a line of load of copper ore.
The Chimney's flue drew smoke from the nearby engine house which powered an ore crusher and a pump which kept the main shaft dry.
Roam around the ruins and it’s easy to find small handfuls of the raw copper ore the miners were after. According to Irving, it was tough work. “They mined the ore and sorted it into high grade parcels that was shipped away from here as bagged ore.”
The captain or mine manager's cottage has a commanding view of the Engine House and Chimney and from the window the Captain could keep an eye on the workforce.
By the early 1860s Nucaleena was a sizeable town - the last bastion of civilisation in northern South Australia and one which the legendary explorer John McDoull Stuart visited on his successful crossing of the continent from south to north. But according to Irving, the visit didn’t quite go to plan:
“One of his tasks on the early part of the journey was to open an institute building that had been built here. And this was the first day’s travel on the expedition. The story has it that he got here in the afternoon and partook in too much alcohol and was in an unfit state to do it. So a subordinate had to do it for him. So the story goes.”
Keep a look out for the arrow pointing due north scratched into the shaley rock near the banks of the Nucaleena Creek. But for The Great Northern Mining Company this was as far into the interior as it would venture.
After donning hard hats and torches, Irving took us into one of the drives. “How far does this go in?” we asked. “About sixty or seventy metres I think.”
It’s now home to a colony of bats but in the 1860s miners, under lamplight were following the greenish tinge in the rock.
But by 1866, The Great Northern Mining Company's dream was over. In six short years it had spent fifty seven thousand pounds to extract just thirteen thousand pounds worth of copper ore from the Nucaleena Mine. As Irving explained, it was a financial disaster for shareholders.
“Unfortunately in those early days they didn't have the advantage of diamond drilling and other forms of exploration that we have today. So basically they just mined what they could see and in many cases they came up short. But the amount of infrastructure that was put in here gives some idea that they thought it was going to be a rather long lived and sizeable affair.”
These days you might see an odd kangaroo picking his way through the Nucaleena ruins, but for a time following the collapse of the Great Northern Mining Company's venture there was the occasional hermit who would try his luck.
“Old Joshua Satturley picked over the mounds of copper here from some time in WW1 until 1922. A mounted policeman found him dead in his dugout bunk. The sixty seven year old was a long way from native home in Devonshire, England.”
Today Nucaleena stands as one of the best preserved copper mines in the State. It’s a monument to tenacity, hard work and ultimately despair. The trail of ruins extends down the dirt track to the nearby remains of the Bushman's Inn also known for a time as the Tam O'Shanter Hotel. It was built by local legend, Chas Faulkner, who later abandoned Nucaleena to build another pub at another copper town - historic Blinman.
Today it's the ideal base from which to explore Nucaleena and all the other highlights of the magnificent Northern Flinders. For bookings contact the Blinman Pub on 8648 4867 or visit www.sahotels.com.au/blinman. They also have information regarding Nuccaleena.
