I revisited Iron Knob in the Middleback Range in late 2023 whilst on a road trip to the Eyre Peninsula. I swagged there overnight on a bit of grass beside a few straggly trees in a space designated as a caravan park for tourists like me. It was pretty bleak.

I had been to Iron Knob in the late 1990s, and though it was a brief visit what I saw became deeply impressed in my memory. My remembrance was that the tailings outcrop of the Iron Monarch dominated the surrounding landscape and the township.

I also remembered the ruins. Quarrying for iron ore at both the Iron Knob and Iron Monarch mines had ended in 1998, the town population declined, and the Iron Knob township was in the process of becoming a ghost town. I remember having a sense of looking back on a history that had past.