All things must come to an end, and our penultimate destination in South Australia was the delightful and quirky heritage town of Burra, founded on copper mining and now a tourist draw card.

Thanks to mining, Burra was Australia’s largest inland town in 1851. The township and mine site provide a comprehensive record of the lifestyle and industrial activity of a 19^th century mining community.

There is so much to see and do, with wonderful cafes and gift shops, great old pubs with log fires, mining cottages, stunning architecture and historical sites.

Natasha and I had lunch at a gorgeous retro café Good Golly Miss Polly, famous for its traditional Cornish pasties. Delicious.

An absolute highlight was passport access to a number of historic sites within and outside the town otherwise unavailable. The passport key is available from the Visitor’s Centre for a relatively small fee ($25 seniors). There is no time limit either, so you can spend one or two days exploring the sites at your leisure.

We visited the police stables and goal, girl’s reformatory school, the museum, the brewery, miners’ dug outs and the old copper mine. A cottage and the railway station are also on the passport route.

There is a range of camping accommodation in Burra and environs, including a good caravan park in the town backing on to the Burra Creek. If you want to free bush camp, try the World’s End reserve about 16 kilometres south east of Burra. It is a beautiful bush setting and worth a look.

Last but not least, we travelled to Loxton in the Riverland for our final two days and camped by the mighty Murray which never disappoints.

A feature as always was the bird life – corellas, pelicans, cormorants, kites, cockatoos, galahs and rosellas. A great way to end our WA and SA road trip.

A footnote worth mentioning. We usually dread unpacking the van when we get home. Not so with this van – all done bar the cleaning within an hour of our arrival. Plenty of time for a wine. Cheers.