Here and there: Seventeen - Copper Triangle

I come from a lot of places, I mean my ancestry, and have done extensive research into the people who came before me, who they were, what they did and where they came from. That's a post for another time, and not something I'll ever fully share on line of course.

On my mother's side the ancestry is mostly from the United Kingdom although there's a German aspect as well - a fringe-noble woman who was denied permission to marry a commoner so they ran away in the 1800's to Australia via New Zealand to be together; they married and lived happily ever after...I have a photo of them from late 1800's.

Mostly mum's side is from the UK though and some arrived in Australia in the early-mid part of the 1800's in chains [transported as convicts to the penal colony of Port Arthur] and some came by choice from Cornwall, copper miners escaping the terrible conditions due to the downturn in work there and seeking fortune in the copper boom within the Copper Triangle, of South Australia; the three towns called Moonta, Wallaroo and Kadina on the States Yorke Peninsula.

Life was hard, incredibly hard, but Cornish miners were tough as nails, as were their families, and they carved out a life one pick-stroke at a time.

This is what it was all about, copper, and a lot was produced between the mid 1800's a very high percentage of the world's copper production was from the Copper Triangle and subsequent mines in the town called Burra as well...and I can trace my line back specifically to some of the people who did the physical labour, the digging, carting, processing and the dying; there was a lot of that, life was hard.

I visit the area a few times a year. It has wonderful coastlines, a low population and the freshest air you'll ever breathe.

I always visit 150 year old graves carved with names of people whose lives helped bring mine into being and I pay my respects and thank them for their hard work and hard-word-ethic which is something that comes so naturally to me...the Cornish miner in me perhaps...or maybe just the stubborn bastard aspect of my character.