Galong is a small town in New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 located in Harden Shire. At the 2006 census

Census in Australia

The Australian census is administered once every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The most recent census was conducted on 9 August 2011; the next will be conducted in 2016. Prior to the introduction of regular censuses in 1961, they had also been run in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933,...

, Galong had a population of 122 people.
The town is well known for its cemetery

Cemetery

A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...

, which has among other monuments, some angels carved by Frank Rusconi

Frank Rusconi

Frank Rusconi was a quarry owner and monumental mason of Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia.He was born at Araluen near Braidwood, New South Wales, the son of a Swiss goldminer and monumental mason. After his mother's death, the family returned to Switzerland while Frank was a child...

, the monumental mason from Gundagai

Gundagai, New South Wales

Gundagai is a town in New South Wales, Australia. Although a small town, Gundagai is a popular topic for writers and has become a representative icon of a typical Australian country town...

.

St Clement's monastery closed in 1975 and is now a retreat centre run by the Redemptorists

Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer

The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer is a Roman Catholic missionary Congregation founded by Saint Alphonsus Liguori at Scala, near Amalfi, Italy for the purpose of labouring among the neglected country people in the neighbourhood of Naples.Members of the Congregation, priests and brothers,...

 and the Sisters of St. Joseph

Sisters of St. Joseph

The title Sisters of St. Joseph applies to several Roman Catholic religious congregations of women. The largest and oldest of these was founded in Le Puy-en-Velay, France...

, Goulburn

Goulburn, New South Wales

Goulburn is a provincial city in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia in Goulburn Mulwaree Council Local Government Area. It is located south-west of Sydney on the Hume Highway and above sea-level. On Census night 2006, Goulburn had a population of 20,127 people...

.

The major industry in the town is the limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 open-cut mine

Open-pit mining

Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....

. The Galong deposit was first mined in 1885 with significant mining activity in the 1920s producing burnt lime or quicklime

Calcium oxide

Calcium oxide , commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline crystalline solid at room temperature....

, which is used in the production of cement. The mine re-opened in the 1960s and again in 1994. In 2001, the lease was altered to extend the mineable area of land from 16 hectares to 160 hectares; resources of 20 million tonnes of limestone have been defined within the proposed limit of mining. In 2003, the mine was acquired by Boral

Boral

Boral is a multinational company dealing in building and construction materials. Founded in Australia, it also has extensive operations in the USA and Asia. Boral was demerged from the 'old' Boral Limited in February 2000. The 'old' Boral Limited, comprising energy assets, was renamed Origin Energy...

. It now produces lime for agricultural lime used for farming canola and grains; agricultural lime is used for remediating soil acidity, a major problem threatening the productivity and sustainability of agriculture in many parts of the state. It produces approximately 300,000 tons per year, about one quarter of the requirements for the state of New South Wales. Apart from agricultural purposes, a major consumer of lime from Galong is the Port Kembla

Port Kembla, New South Wales

Port Kembla is a suburb of Wollongong 8 km south of the CBD and part of the Illawarra region of New South Wales. The suburb comprises a seaport, industrial complex , a small harbour foreshore nature reserve, and a small commercial sector. It is situated on the tip of Red Point, first sighted...

 steel works. A kiln was built at the mine in 2003/04 to allow the production of quicklime

Calcium oxide

Calcium oxide , commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline crystalline solid at room temperature....

for use in cement. The mine employs about 19 people.