Framedlight

A short boat trip from Dubrovnik lands you at a small jetty on the island of Lokrum. The boat was packed and there had been trips going all morning but the island seemed large enough to accommodate everyone without any crowds. Lokrum has an interesting history. The Benedictines established a monastery here in 1023 and legend has it that Richard the Lionheart came ashore when his boat was wrecked, returning from the crusades in 1192. Richard wanted to donate a church to the island for the hospitality he had received but was implored to build the church on the mainland instead, and so Richard is rumoured to have funded the first cathedral in Dubrovnik. The island was later owned by the wife of Archduke Ferdinand of Hapsburg who had a mansion and gardens built here in 1859. Maximilian was executed after he had become the Emperor of Mexico and his wife became insane. The mansion has now all but disappeared but some of the gardens remain and a botanical garden was established here in 1959....

We continued our exploration of Bodie walking up towards the Standard Mill. On our way we passed some more houses, a well and a couple of rusty wagons from the old railroad. The rails from this have long gone to scrap. The Standard Mill and Mine stand on the side of a hill known as Bodie Buff. At one time several mines operated in the area round Bodie but all the smaller ones closed leaving just a few larger ones including the Standard Mine, originally known as the Bunker Hill Mine when registered in July 1861. It was sold for $67,000 dollars to four partners who changed the name to the Standard Consolidated Mining Company in 1877. In 25 years this mine produced nearly $15 million dollars worth of gold and caused the Bodie gold rush. Fire destroyed it in 1898 but it was rebuilt . In the years between 1860 and 1941 when this mine finally closed Bodie yielded close to $100 million in gold and silver. The Mill was a stamping mill used to crush the ore. You cannot ...