Beltana
Beltana is a town north of Adelaide, South Australia. Beltana is known for continuing to exist long after the reasons for its existence had ceased. The town's history began in the 1870s with the advent of copper mining in the area, construction of the Australian Overland Telegraph Line and The Ghan railway and began to decline in 1941 with the beginning of coal mining at Leigh Creek. The fortune of the town was sealed by the 1983 realignment of the main road away from the town. The town, adjacent cemetery and railway structures are now part of a designated State Heritage Area declared in 1987. Beltana has important links with the overland telegraph, transcontinental railway, mining, outback services, Australian Inland Mission and also has "Afghan" sites relating to its past as a camel-based transport centre. The town has had horse racing since 1876, an annual picnic races and gymkhana and a biennial pastoral field day. These events are no longer held. The Beltana roadhouse, now from Beltana on the main highway between Parachilna and Leigh Creek, acted as the town's local store until it closed in 2016. Landscape Beltana lies 240 m above sea level between the often dry Warrioota and Sliding Rock creeks near Mount Deception. Due to the flatness of the country, the town's proximity to the creeks and the area's usually unpredictable weather, heavy rainfall has often led to flooding. Beltana has experienced six months with no rain (1960–61) and six months with over 300 mm of rain (1975–76) and drought has caused the area to be unstocked for long periods (1903–09). Rainfall has ranged from 57 mm in 1902 to a record 408.6 mm in 1974 with a long term average of 205 mm. There are occasional winter frosts, hailstorms and one recorded snowfall (on Mount Hack and Mount Stuart in July 1971). Saltbush, bluebush and other acacias are native plants that, with the reduction in stocking over the last decades of the 20th century, are beginning to return to the town area. River red gums line the creeks and there is a nearby yellow-footed rock-wallaby population. History Original inhabitants The original inhabitants were the Kuyani and Adnyamathanha Aboriginal people who used the area as a camp due to the nearby springs. With the arrival of Europeans their traditional lifestyle was disrupted and many of them began working as stockmen on pastoral runs. During the early years of European settlement they kept a camp near Beltana Station but later moved closer to the town at Warrioota Creek. As the town was gradually depopulated some Aboriginal people occupied the abandoned buildings so by the late 1960s they again formed the majority of the population. Naming Beltana takes its name from that of a nearby sheep station, west of the current town, which provided a stopover point for travellers, missionaries, explorers, and miners. The name Beltana may have come from the Adnyamathanha word for running water or crossing of the waters or may be an adaptation of veldana