Mintaro

History

The original inhabitants of the Clare Valley were the Indigenous Ngadjuri people, who spent thousands of years in the area before European settlement. It is believed that they had major camping sites at Clare and Auburn, including the region now known as Mintaro. The Mintaro district was explored by Europeans in mid-1839, first by John Hill, and then by Edward John Eyre. The area north of Gawler was officially opened by a series of special surveys in the early 1840s. Land in the Barossa and Clare Valleys was quickly taken up. The first settler in Mintaro was pastoralist James Stein who from 1841 held occupation licences for extensive sheep runs stretching from Mount Horrocks through Farrell Flat to the Burra district. Stein subsequently established his homestead on a tributary of the Wakefield River, in a valley beneath Mount Horrocks, about three kilometres west of present Mintaro. Between 1848 and 1851 several villages were established along the Gulf Road to take advantage of the trade generated by the bullock traffic. The towns were established about apart because that was the distance a bullock team could travel in a day. The village of Mintaro was originally intended as a stopping and resting place for the bullock teams (muleteers) carting the copper ore from the mine to the port, and returning with coal and supplies. The first allotments surveyed and sold in Mintaro faced the Gulf Road (now Burra Street). As a result, Mintaro's early layout reflects the copper route, with streets aligned at 45 degrees to the north-south grid of the surveyed sections and government roads. During the 1860s and 1870s public buildings appeared in the town, including a school, and a substantial number of Irish Catholics settled in and around Mintaro. In 1876 the population was…

Geography

Mintaro is located in the eastern Clare Valley, about 126 km north of Adelaide, South Australia east of the Horrocks Highway. The region contains a series of valleys with altitudes ranging from 300m to over 500m above sea level, with an annual average of 9.3 sunlight hours per day. The town is situated in a valley below Mount Horrocks at the crossroads of Jolly Way, Copper Ore Road, Min Man Road and Mintaro/Leasingham Roads. The main road in Mintaro is Burra Street. Mintaro's climate is Mediterranean, with typically warm to hot summers and cool to cold moist winters. Daily average temperatures range from 8.0 °C in winter to 21.4 °C in summer with an annual average rainfall of 632mm. Rainfall mostly occurs in winter and spring months (June - September). The most common native tree species in the region are Eucalyptus blue gum, E. peppermint gum, E. red stringybark and Casuarinaceae (commonly known as sheoak). The Spring Gully Conservation Park is located about 15 km to the west of Mintaro.

Most-observed species

• Crimson Rosella

  Platycercus elegans (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  645
• Australian Magpie

  Gymnorhina tibicen (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  617
• Galah

  Eolophus roseicapilla (Vieillot, 1817) · Aves
  613
• White-plumed Honeyeater

  Ptilotula penicillata (Gould, 1837) · Aves
  481
• Red Wattlebird

  Anthochaera carunculata (Shaw, 1790) · Aves
  471
• Little Raven

  Corvus mellori Mathews, 1912 · Aves
  429
• Striated Pardalote

  Pardalotus striatus (Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  331
• Red-rumped Parrot

  Psephotus haematonotus (Gould, 1838) · Aves
  326

Most recent

• M 4.3 — 2024-04-17
  8 km ENE of Jamestown, Australia
• M 4.4 — 2020-05-14
  15 km WSW of Burra, Australia
• M 3.3 — 2018-07-09
  9 km NNW of Jamestown, Australia
• M 4.1 — 2011-09-04
  16 km SW of Peterborough, Australia
• M 3.1 — 2008-12-04
  17 km ESE of Crystal Brook, Australia
• M 2.7 — 2007-08-03
  23 km SSE of Burra, Australia