Burra. Baldina Creek crossing at Red Banks Conservation park. March 2021.
Baldina and Red Banks.
The Hundred of Baldina, only a few miles east of Burra was declared in 1875. No township emerged but several public buildings were scattered across the entire district. The original Baldina leasehold was held by Sir Henry Ayers one of the main owners of Burra copper mines and later an early Premier of South Australia with three terms in office in 1863-4, 1867-8 and again 1872-3. The locality had a Lutheran church and school 1878- 1913; a Methodist Church 1876 to 1910; a galvanised iron government school various years between 1885 and 1929; and a Post Office 1879 to 1910. Nothing remains of these structures today. North of Baldina and closer to Burra a large town was surveyed on Baldina Creek but land did not sell and it never developed except for the Douglas Methodist Church which was built in the proposed town. This town, surveyed in 1877, was near Baldina Station homestead and wool shed. The Eastern Road along Baldina Creek leads to Red Banks Conservation Park. This conservation park was created not just because of the interesting landscape along the creek and the red creek banks but because it is also an important palaeontology site. The semi Mallee landscape is one of the richest fossil sites in Australia. Fossil remains of extinct marsupials were first discovered here in 1889 when Amandus Zeitz from the SA Museum visited the site and collected the partial skeleton of a giant diprotodon. He also found remains of a giant emu Genyomis, a giant marsupial lion Thylacoleo, and a giant Tasmanian devil Sarcophilus. Recent scientific dating of the site and fossils by the University of Adelaide shows that the megafauna and diprotodons died out about 45,000 years probably because of a change in vegetation cover. Diprotodons were the world’s largest marsupial with two large incisors, a pouch for suckling their young and they stood about 2 metres tall and were up to 3 metres long. Some scientists think the diprotodons coexisted with Aboriginal occupation and their demise over about 20,000 years might have been caused by Aboriginal hunters or Aboriginal burning of vegetation
Burra. Baldina Creek crossing at Red Banks Conservation park. March 2021.
Baldina and Red Banks.
The Hundred of Baldina, only a few miles east of Burra was declared in 1875. No township emerged but several public buildings were scattered across the entire district. The original Baldina leasehold was held by Sir Henry Ayers one of the main owners of Burra copper mines and later an early Premier of South Australia with three terms in office in 1863-4, 1867-8 and again 1872-3. The locality had a Lutheran church and school 1878- 1913; a Methodist Church 1876 to 1910; a galvanised iron government school various years between 1885 and 1929; and a Post Office 1879 to 1910. Nothing remains of these structures today. North of Baldina and closer to Burra a large town was surveyed on Baldina Creek but land did not sell and it never developed except for the Douglas Methodist Church which was built in the proposed town. This town, surveyed in 1877, was near Baldina Station homestead and wool shed. The Eastern Road along Baldina Creek leads to Red Banks Conservation Park. This conservation park was created not just because of the interesting landscape along the creek and the red creek banks but because it is also an important palaeontology site. The semi Mallee landscape is one of the richest fossil sites in Australia. Fossil remains of extinct marsupials were first discovered here in 1889 when Amandus Zeitz from the SA Museum visited the site and collected the partial skeleton of a giant diprotodon. He also found remains of a giant emu Genyomis, a giant marsupial lion Thylacoleo, and a giant Tasmanian devil Sarcophilus. Recent scientific dating of the site and fossils by the University of Adelaide shows that the megafauna and diprotodons died out about 45,000 years probably because of a change in vegetation cover. Diprotodons were the world’s largest marsupial with two large incisors, a pouch for suckling their young and they stood about 2 metres tall and were up to 3 metres long. Some scientists think the diprotodons coexisted with Aboriginal occupation and their demise over about 20,000 years might have been caused by Aboriginal hunters or Aboriginal burning of vegetation