The Wee MacGregor Mine.

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Well we made it down the track from the Hightville Tunnel. It was a slow drive which was not over yet. From the other side of the tunnel the track up to the mine looked reasonable, but I could not have been more wrong.

Graeme driving the mighty Ford Ranger up the hill I was sure he had gone the wrong way as this track was deplorable, bad washouts of the track, protruding rocks and ruts across the road a good 600 to 800 mm high.

I was thinking that the Ford Ranger was going to get hung up. The Ranger has very good approach and departure angles, plus the person at the wheel is a very good 4wd driver, lots of experience. 


As we approach the mine the track did get alot better, it was an adventure just getting up the mountain. Now we are here there are lots of concrete structures and water tanks maybe settling tanks not that sure. 


This is Avery big copper mine that was in operation 1915. It's amazing that so much is still standing after 100yrs.


 The old smelter has fallen down the hill.



It does look like some one has been in to the mine and cleaned the area.


The electrical control board looks modern probably a salvaging team use it in the cleanup.



All the tin metal has been pressed out in circles and the scap left in heaps.


The grated area has a very deep shaft where the old copper mine extracted the copper ore and processing and refining the copper ore into copper.


A picture of the early Wee MacGregor Mine as it was in 1915 coming from the information board.


Another mine not far off the road small project probably part of the existing Wee MacGregor Mine.


Open mine shaft very deep, very dangerous if you fall into it.


There should be a protective barrier around the mine shaft.


This is an abandoned small mine operation which had no name on this mining project. The Wee MacGregor Mine closure was in 1918 due the the price of copper dropping so much that the cost to extract the copper far exceeding the current price of copper.

This was due to World War 1 ending which was great news for Australia but not good news for the copper business.

The war effort required lots of copper for weapons but now the wartime is over, so was the contacts for copper. It feels good to relive a little bit of history.

Now in 1913 the town of Hightville was relocated and renamed to Ballara. It was a town that had a rail siding to off load the copper into a stronger railway that the government built.

This blog is getting very long so the next adventure is to check out the new township of Ballara.





























































 






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