Every town has a story…

10th September

Yesterday, instead of sticking to the main road south to get to the Flinders Ranges, we decided that we’d take a few days and detour to the north.

Day one was unexpectedly interesting, as we passed through Woomera, Roxby Downs and Andamooka – each town with a completely different history.

Woomera

Just off the main road, this town was a base for weapon testing and rocket launching from the 1947. The town was restricted to the public until 1982. Now, they have an outdoor museum you can visit, with actual missiles and rockets and replicas of those that were used and tested decades ago.

 

They also have a really cool little museum, with relics and artefacts from the early days. There was some interesting information about living in the town when it was still restricted and the controversy of the testing at the time, about Len Beadel, who was responsible for constructing most of the roads in the area, and about the Detention Centre that was here in the 1990s.

 

The town seems so out of place, in the middle of the desert, with its neatly laid streets and kerb and gutter. And it still looks like the 70s or 80s, with the old cinema and the style of cafes and furniture in both the cinema and information centre.

Woomera today, is still administered by the Australian Defence Force and the Woomera prohibited area, testing range extends for 127000 square kilometres in the surrounding area. Fascinating!

Andamooka

This little town, like Copper Pedy, was established for Opal Mining. It remains today, much as you would expect it would have looked back in the mid 1900s when mining was at its peak.

The hub of the town is the Post Office, with a house made of bottles out the front and a really quirky little museum underneath. I loved the pictures and stories of the characters in the town in the early days.

Along the main street, there is a strip of old mining houses dug into the ground, the same as they do in Cooper Pedy, to give relief from the summer heat. However, these houses are still in their original condition and full of original furniture and cooking utensils etc. they are not locked up and you are free to roam through. It amazes me that you can have something like this open to the public and it hasn’t all been stolen.

And there’s a collection of old mining vehicles at the other end of town

 

Roxy Downs

I don’t have any photos of Roxby Downs, but this town has it’s own history, built as a hub for the controversial Olympic Dam Mine. Although it is in the middle of the desert, it is a typical mining town , with all the modern facilities and amenities that you’d expect of a town close to the city.