Welcome To Our Excursions Page! Here you will find detailed information on our upcoming excursions. If you require more information about a particular excursion please email the trip co-ordinator whose details are provided.
Sunday 23rd Marxh
Mark Dale with Friends of the Willunga Slate Museum and Quarry staff
Sunday 23rd March
Visit to the Willunga Slate Quarry, the Slate Museum and Old Willunga Courthouse.
Slate was big business in the 19th century. It was used extensively in the building trade for roofing, walls, water tanks, drains and in the memorial stone business as gravestones. It still has a continuing reduced role for paving and landscaping.
The two main sources of slate in South Australia were, and continue to be, Mintaro in the north and Willunga in the south. The slate industry was central to the economy of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century town of Willunga. The National Trust has kept the memory alive with the Slate Museum which is in the same grounds as the Old Courthouse filled with history of the district.
We will meet at the Courthouse car park to be ready to carpool at 10 a.m. for the winding drive uphill to Willunga slate Quarry. Visit: https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/places/willunga-courthouse-museum/ for details how to get to the Courthouse and more information.
At the Quarry we will be hosted by quarry staff and will be able to explore the quarry site and learn about the transition from mud to the hard, layered stone that is slate. We will then return to the Courthouse to be greeted by National Trust volunteer staff who will have supplied an urn to complement our packed lunch, taken al fresco.
After lunch we will be guided by the volunteers through the Court house and Slate Museum. This concludes the organised part of the excursion but you may well like to complete your day with a walk along a slate trail through Willunga’s leafy suburb.
This is an easy walking day with rough terrain in the Quarry, so suitable footwear and be prepared for hot sunny conditions but March has changeable weather so check the forecast ahead of the day.
The National Trust has opened the Courthouse and Museum just for our group and will charge $10 per person. Participants will need to bring $10 with them in cash.
A sign-up sheet for the excursion will be provided at the March meeting; or contact Secretary/Programme Coordinator Frances Williams (frances.williams@adelaide.edu.au) if you would like to join this excursion.
Mark Dale