This town is dirty and dusty.
And that is fantastic.
DH can’t quite believe that we are actually here. He had never really considered coming here, but this is one of those places that was on the Clark’s Shoes map I had as a child, and I always so wanted to go (or come!)
It has been 22 deg C today – lovely.
We visited the Big Pit – the main feature of the town, although only from the lookout at the top. Wow. That is one cool mine! I never thought that I could be so moved by a hole in the ground. Yes, I know, open cut mining is really shocking for the environment, and, I guess, not pretty, but I couldn’t help thinking it would be a great place to work.
It is currently 3.5 x 1.5 km (the maximum planned area) and 400m deep (an extra 200m excavation planned over the next 8 years). It is also one of the richest gold mines in the world. And they have really big trucks and lots of dirt.
I was also interested to see tributes to Saint Barbara around town. For those who do not know, she is the patron saint of miners (hence the tribute) and her feast day is my birthday. She was the Christian daughter of a “heathen” who had arranged a marriage for her to a non-Christian. Instead of marry, she ran away and was hidden my miners for two years, in which time she taught them about Christianity. Her whereabouts was given away by shepherds (always telling news…) and “she was matyred by her father” (ie he hunted her down and chopped her head off. Nice guy.) They have a big festival here each December.
