Yudnamutana ( ) is an historic mining valley in the Northern

Flinders Ranges The Flinders Ranges are the largest mountain range in South Australia, which starts about north of Adelaide. The ranges stretch for over from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna. The Adnyamathanha people are the Aboriginal group who have inhabi ...

, located at Mount Freeling, North West of

Arkaroola Arkaroola is the common name for the ''Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary'', a wildlife sanctuary situated on of freehold and pastoral lease land in South Australia. It is located north of the Adelaide city centre in the Northern Flinders Rang ...

on the edge of the wilderness sanctuary. It is accessible by

four-wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

from the south. Ancient mining sites give the opportunity for ecologically responsible bush camping, but no supplies are available. Walks across the crests of the mountains deliver splendid views over the Flinders Ranges into the plains of the

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a n ...

. The northern pass hosts black rocks of

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With the ...

History

Indigenous people

This area was inhabited by the

Adnyamathanha The Adnyamathanha (Pronounced: ) are a contemporary Aboriginal Australian people of the northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia, formed as an aggregate of several distinct peoples. Strictly speaking the ethnonym Adnyamathanha was an alternativ ...

tribe, of

Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

prior to Europeans. They were

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...

hunter-gatherers A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

and inhabited much of the area to the south.

European settlement

This area was first settled by pastoralists in the 1850s but prospectors followed shortly after, hoping for another Burra style deposit. A copper deposit was found, in 1859, by A Frost and H Gleeson.Yudnamutana, South Australia
''Journal of the Mineralogical Society of South Australia'', Accessed 16/11/07 Record of the mines of South Australia
''Internet Archive, Canadian Libraries'' Yudnamutana was the site of an early

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

copper mine Copper extraction refers to the methods used to obtain copper from its ores. The conversion of copper consists of a series of physical and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ore source, loca ...

. First mined in 1862, it reached fame in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

shortly after when a four tonne block of ore was paraded through the streets. A drought in 1869 forced the closure of the mine because not enough water was available for animals used for transport at the mine. Another attempt was made at mining the site at the start of the 20th century, though this also closed by 1912. Transport was easier this time but ore still had to be drayed to the train line at Farina, 100 km away. All that remains of this settlement are two large boilers, some mine shafts, some dugouts and the cemetery.

Notes

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External links

History of Yudnamutana

Picture Australia
Ghost towns in South Australia Flinders Ranges Far North (South Australia) 1862 establishments in Australia