The next day we went on a tour of the Hard Times Mine, an underground mine tour which involves getting into orange overalls, a hard hat, a thick belt to which you attach a very heavy battery pack and a light that is clipped onto your helmut, oh yes and a pair of gumboots. Of course this took some time to get organised with a group of about 20 people. We got in the cage and descended down into the mine. Our tour was very comprehensive, our guide Trevor has been an underground miner for many years. He showed us the various drills that are used and even turned them on and let everyone have a go at drilling. There are a lot of trucks down there that will never come to the surface again as it’s just too expensive to bring them up.
It was a terrific insight into the life of an underground miner and how hard it used to be and even today with all the technology and a lot of the trucks being driven by remote control it’s still a lot of hard and dangerous work.
After the mine tour we took a short drive out to Lake Moondarra. The locals call it the outback ocean. There were some boats out on the lake and some people in swimming. It is very picturesque. The lake is huge and has several islands in the middle. There is also a dam and we walked out along the dam wall for an even better view.
The rugged red mountains that surround the lake intensify the sparkling blue waters of the lake and the surrounding green parklands with picnic tables and bbq’s.