Group and tour guides of the historic Daydream underground mine

After lunch (and unfortunately for some a maths exam), the group visited the old Daydream Mine, a silver mine that pre-dated mining at Broken Hill.

As any local will tell you, anyone from "away" must include Silverton in their visit.

Once a thriving mining town, people eventually were lured to the bigger mines in Broken Hill.

Silverton refuses to fade away and has become an important base for many movies.

The friendly publican awarded one of the students, who had just celebrated his 21st, a certificate in honour of competing in the "special event."

The vast horizon that extends beyond the Mundi Mundi Plain created the backdrop for a spectacular sunset and closure for the first day.

Day Two involved a visit to the Perilya Mine. The group was welcomed to the site by Barry Mitchell, the mine General Manager.

Ron Ellis, Manager Mining, then outlined the plan for the visit. Essentially this followed the core mining processes from geology to mine planning, mine operations and maintenance and milling.

Ron emphasised that the mining system has evolved from large-scale primary stoping to what is now remnant mining. Even though there are great complexities, similar mining rates are being achieved. Much effort is being devoted to extending the ore reserves and hence mine life.

Jared Broome, Senior Mine Geologist, and his team outlined the mine geology particularly the different mineral lodes at the North Mine and Southern Operations.

Angus Henderson, Chief Mine Planning Engineer, spoke on the planning process, of the different planning domains and the interaction with surveying, geotechnical engineering and mine operations.

Jeff Griffin, Underground Maintenance Superintendent, educated the student mining engineers about the challenges in ensuring equipment is available when needed.

Half of the group was then showed the surface facilities necessary to support the mine operations - hoisting, crushing and screening, milling and maintenance workshop.

The other half drove down the decline to visit the underground mine operations, inspected drilling and blasting, viewed stoping operations, and some of the loading and hauling equipment.

After lunch the groups swapped over.

The model shown on the right (top) shows the changes in the mining system from labour intensive timber stoping in the very high grade sections of the orebody (right) to the open stoping mining methods more commonly used today (left).

The Mobile Miner (right) was developed as an R&D project in an effort to create a fully automated "underground rock factory." Nearly $30m was spent on the project.

Day Three began with a briefing by Simon Finnis, Operations Manager with Bemax Resources, who spoke on the planning, approval, development and soon commissioning work associated with bringing on stream the new "beach sands" mining operation at Pooncarie, 100 km south of Broken Hill.

The future potential of mineral sands mining in western NSW and Victoria is enormous with vast resources. Aside from employment at the mine site, Broken Hill will also directly benefit from having a processing plant located on the outskirts of town.

Rob Ogden, General Manager with CBH Resources at Broken Hill, spoke on the current exploration program and planning options covered by the mining lease in the centre of the City.

The lease incorporates most of the original mining leases pegged when Broken Hill was first explored including the original BHP pit.

Rob spoke about the site rehabilitation work undertaken as part of preparing for eventual mine closure as well as the managing the difficult issues of mining when surrounded on all borders by private residences.

The final segment of the excursion was a discussion by Luke Pickering, Senior Environmental Officer with Minerals Resources, of the future options for rehabilitation, of what should be done to the various features many of which have historic significance.

Surface facilities and buildings at the North Mine and at Southern Cross.

Rehabilitation of tailings dams and rock dumps.

Efforts at fencing off land in an effort to allow it to naturally return to its former condition.

While in Broken Hill, the students stayed at the renown Mario's Palace Hotel on Argent Street. The hotel is a favourite watering spot for locals as well as tourists and like Silverton has played a part in many movies.

Again a thank you to all who made this a memorable experience for the students.

P. Hagan
August 2005