Thursday 24 November 2011

visiting the (iron ore) mine

 Thanks to a ship holiday last Friday we fit in a day of adventure with our friends Mike and Vi, another British guy Joel, who is working here a few months, their friend Pastor Paul and driver Alfa - we drove a couple of hours out of Freetown to the Lunsar area, where Mike and Vi lived many years ago. Our first stop was London Mining - where Mike had worked some thirty-something years ago. We could see the mining area as we approached it in the truck.
 We were not expecting to see more than the mines in the distance, but a friend of Pastor Pauls graciously hosted all of us and organised a tour for us within the mining compound. Official badges and all :-)
 After a bit of off-roading, we stopped the cars and walked the last bit to the top for some incredible views and a bit of explanation of what they are planning to do there
 The views were amazing
 There were butterflies everywhere, but our camera is not really fast enough to have any evidence of most of them, but this one stayed still for me :-)
Our guides explained the mining process and the different areas of production. It was really interesting, even the boys really enjoyed it - helped by the fact that they were allowed to collect 'shiny rocks' - bits of iron ore!

More to come on the rest of our day out...

No comments: