Saturday 28^th July

The Tandarra Markets had been advertised around town, so we made sure we were there to explore all the arts and crafts.  The building for this market was the former single men’s hostel built to house the BHP workers from 1942. Sometime between then and 1990 the hostel ceased to exist and so the village was established as the permanent home for the development of crafts in Whyalla, as well as providing an outlet for locally made handicrafts. 

We enjoyed our steak sandwich for lunch and bought some homemade fig jam and apple pies. It was lovely wandering in and out the rooms which would have been the bedrooms for the single men, and chatting to spinners, machine knitters and woodworkers.  We stumbled across a museum of sorts which displayed a project from a primary school on the processes involved at the steel works.  Voila – there it was for Mrs. Average Smith – a clear, simple explanation of what we had seen yesterday.  Now I feel like a walking encyclopaedia on steel manufacture.

We noticed this large tyre in the grounds and upon closer inspection the stats were given.  It was a tyre for a slag pot carrier which in 2006 cost $8000 for a front tyre and $20,000 for a back one.  The vehicle these tyres went on cost $2,000,000.  This tyre weighs 1.3 tons – wow big boys toys.

We stopped to take a photo of this sculpture, known as “The Loaded Dog”. It is based on the dog from Henry Lawson’s famous Australian bush tale, “The Loaded Dog”. The story is about a playful mischievous retriever, Tommy, who makes off with a stick of explosive. Tommy drags the fuse through the campfire, lighting it and creating mayhem in the chase that follows.  The sculptor was Andy Scott and he created this in Glasgow entirely out of steel using his unique construction technique of welding thousands of pieces of 10mm and 12mm rod together.  It is in the garden of the Whyalla Veterinary Clinic.

We needed a walk to shake down the nibbles and lunch from the markets so headed to the Whyalla Wetlands which is a combined recreational and stormwater capture facility.  These wetlands include almost 7 hectares of artificial lakes fed by a combination of underground seepage and stormwater runoff. The wetlands were initially the site of Whyalla’s first airport, the original hangar has been restored and proudly sits at the rear of the site.

Another night out at Lowly Point and then tomorrow we will move through Port Augusta again to re-stock some groceries before making camp at Mambray Creek close to The Remarkables a mountain range.  More on that as it unfolds for us.