Roxby Downs Olympic Dam & Andamooka.

Today we spent some time looking around Roxby Downs, a town built for the people that work out of the Olympic Dam that BHP Billiton own. It was built in 1988.  Its actually what we see as a nice little town however, being school holidays here in SA it is more quiet than usual so we are told. We also took a drive out to the Olympic Dam gate to see if we could see anything but you couldn't. They only do mine tours on a Friday & we don't have time to wait for then so it was a bit of a shame that we couldn't do that. 

I can tell you a few things about the area though. BHP Billiton mine Copper, Uranium, Gold & Silver. Olympic Dam is the largest underground mine in Australia. The original dam was built in 1956 to provide water to the livestock at Roxby Downs Station, so Olympic Dam comes from the 1956 Olympic Games that were held in Melbourne that year & originally it was a Dam that was built near/on the site where the mine is today.

These are the 2 signs you face before entering the security gates at the mine site.

So after having a quick look there we decided to take a drive out further to Andamooka. Its an Opal mining town. It also has a fair bit of history, but its a place we will never return to! Nothing there, lucky to have a few bitumen roads. They all live in 'shed like' houses, lots of red dirt. Has a post office, a pub, a motel & some hostorical cottages. The historical cottages were worth a look & made it interesting. They were all about the dugouts that were made by certain people who lived there years ago. The last person to leave them was Mrs. Perry in 1965. I have taken a few pics of these, if you can at all zoom in on the signs with the info, you too will be able to have a better understanding of the place.

After checking these out we went over to the local post office & there was this made out of beer bottles.

And then the next few pics are of the main street in Andamooka.

And finally some other photos we took whilst in Andamooka.

           Some old mining machinery.

The afternoon was spend doing to homework with Pheobe & playing outside with Maurice & Felicity. The sun was out today & it was lovely.

Late afternoon came & we had early showers & headed over to Milly's place for a play & dinner. So lovely to catch up with Milly & her family. Milly's Dad Jay even got home in time to have dinner with the adults, so it was good to catch up with him too! He works at the Olympic Dam mine. 

This was all the kids eating dinner together tonight!

Whats that saying? Never work with animals & children!!! So hard to get a perfect shot but at least they were having a good time & Maurice got to see Milly again!

Well thats about it for today. Hope everyone is well & staying warm. Until the next post take care xo