Distance - 375km (7109km)
Weather - Sunny, windy 28 degrees
Without a doubt the weirdest place on Earth is Woomera in South Australia.
Getting there was a straight forward journey down the Stuart Highway through lands that changed a number times, from the vast open plains of Coober Pedy to dense scrub, eventually passing through hilly desert areas surrounding many salt lakes.
The traffic picked up the further south we headed, either roadtrains or grey nomads heading south for the summer. This was annoying as all of them seemed to sit on around 85kph on a 110kph highway, even the bloody Love Bus was being held up. It's actually quite dangerous at times and I was starting to wonder if they were even aware of the other road users.
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| Inside the Lookout Cave Motel, the most amazing hotel I have ever seen. |
Another thing that started to increase was the number of animals dead on the roadside. It was clear it could be dangerous on this road at certain times of the day, some of the animals were large cows.
After around 4 hours we reached Woomera.
First impressions were that it is a very well kept town, but something didn't seem right. You see, I've seen plenty of zombie apocalyptic movies and TV shows and this very resembled this. The place was pretty much deserted despite all of the homes looking very much lived in.
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| I've got a bad feeling about this ... not one 'walker' in sight. |
There's literally hundreds of homes, yet the whole town was deserted, it was one of the weirdest feelings I have ever had. It seems that the history of Woomera.
The town or "Woomera Village" was set up in 1947 as the base for the Woomera Test Range (previously known as the Woomera Rocket Range). The WRR was initially set up to test ballistic missiles for the British and Australian military. This area was called and is still known as the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA), despite being downsized it is still 1.5 times the size of Scotland or slightly larger than New York State. It takes up 1/7th the size of South Australia.
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| A remnant of the 'cold war' |
The peak population was between 1947 and 1972 and averaged around 7,000 people from Australia, Britain and America. All of these people were housed either houses or apartments all of which are still in town today however, since the British left in 1980 the population has decreased dramatically to only 110 permanent residents although, around 5,000 people come and go throughout the year as some testing still takes place.
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| Rocket launcher tubes |
For this reason the town feels like some sort of apocalypse has taken place. With this in mind it is well worth checking the place out, as it feels like you are walking around a movie set. There's plenty of relics to remind you that Australia was a very real part of the Cold War and then later in the space race, in fact Australia was the fourth nation to launch a satellite into space.
The towns only caravan park / motel, is a remnant of a former barracks and the motel rooms seem to be former staff quarters. They comfortable and have a nostalgic feel and for the price you can't complain. The park also has it's own pub set up in the middle of the carpark, it's where many of the locals and workers come for a drink.
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| Jindivik |
Talking to a few of the locals it was clear that it's a very different life out here and as interested in it as I was they seemed more interested in the Long Ride and my accident. Almost everyone knew about it and what had happened, and where appreciative to have met the 'legend', I'm glad that my contribution to the Long Ride was being so wide spread and also spreading the word of men's health.
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