"Mikulov" - The Property
The Village of Captains Flat

This is the view of the village from near our front gate.

 

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We live on the family property, Mikulov, outside the village of Captains Flat, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) south east of Canberra, the capital city of Australia. The 100 acres is mostly forested, both with native eucalypts and planted Radiata pines (Pinus radiata). The bitumen road ends just past our house, and prospective visitors reach for a pen and paper when they phone for directions to get to Mikulov.
In all our years here, we could count on the fingers of one hand the folks who have arrived at our door saying “We were just passing by, so thought we would stop in.”

There are so many positive aspects to living away from the busy city. Kangaroos and yellow tailed black cockatoos are abundant and the occasional wombat tries to settle in under the house, until we crate and relocate the indignant marsupial. Blue tongued lizards are active through summer, and a few echidnas have been seen digging into the earth when startled.

The property was the former Lake George Mines Company site for underground mining of silver, lead and zinc. Mara's parents, Alois and Vanda Mikula purchased it after the Company was liquidated in 1963. The house we live in has been converted from the Company’s office building, and we are slowly rejuvenating it room by room. The first room to be completed is a guest bedroom - we have our priorities right, as visitors often stay overnight - and are now able to do so in comfort. The back part of the house is a series of workshops, much to Richard’s delight, as he has crammed in them all manner of tools, machinery and items of potential use. Mara has taken over a spare for her craft items, and spends many hours relaxing while producing knitted, cross stitched and (since mid 2012) patchwork items.

The large yards for the dogs enclosed by 1.8 metre high cyclone wire cemented into the ground open onto a grassed exercise area, similarly fenced.
 

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This view of a portion of the disused Mine shows the lookout above the village, as well as the grassed over tailings dump, seen as the green terraced slope at the left.

 
A closer view of the rolling crushers which broke up the ore into manageable pieces for processing

 

A row of 4 settling tanks dominates the former Lake George Mine works, and adds a historical flavour to the view over our back fence.
Built above the railhead, ore dropped through the floor of this weigh station into train trucks, for transport to Wollongong / Port Kembla for export

 

6  April 2006    ~         a BIG LETTER day here

The unearthing of the original facade for the Lake George Mines main entrance.

Concrete and etched with the Mine name and the year it was opened - 1937

this had remained buried since it was bulldozed in back in 1963

 

 

Mulligan shared the occasion with me and we took our turn to get a picture.

 

Click here to go to Mara's record of the work at it progressed

 

 

 

St Luke's Church

In 2001, the Centenary of Federation Year, Alois Mikula designed, constructed and fitted five stained glass picture windows for St Luke's Anglican Church in Captains Flat.   Click here to see the windows and read more about them.

 

Captains Flat

The Village of Captains Flat has its own Web Site at:  http://www.captainsflat.org/

 

Mills Cross Radio Telescope

Of interest locally is the Mills Cross Radio Telescope, operated by the University of Sydney.

Here are links to some articles about this radio telescope.

http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/astrop/most/

http://www.atnf.csiro.au/news/newsletter/oct01/focus_hist.htm

http://www.tip.csiro.au/History/PottsHill.htm

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Mills.html