Roxby Downs, Andamooka, Woomera - 28 to 30 July 2009

We left Marree in the afternoon for the mining town of Roxby Downs, following the Oodnadata Track.

By chance we met Paul Clancy, who had left Beltana Station the day we arrived, and was trekking with his four camels from Port Augusta to Alice Springs. He stopped for lunch and a chat and we passed on Graham and Laura's best wishes and replenished his supply of dark chocolate.

 

 

 

 

Along the track a local homestead has commissioned an artist to do an annual art work. Some of the results are below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The recent rains have brought out many of the desert wildflowers - beautiful and delicate in the harsh landscape.

Having visited most of the abandoned copper mines in South Australia, Roxby Downs with the nearby Olympic Dam Mine the world's sixth largest copper and largest uranium deposits, is still in its growth phase. 

In addition to being a good pit stop as the water [bore water put through reverse osmosis] is perfectly pure and being a mining town the shopping is good, it is also a most interesting area.

The first day we toured the Arid Recovery Reserve. This 86 sq km fenced area of Arid lands excludes feral animals especially cats and foxes allowing the reestablishment of populations of Greater Bilbies, Burrowing Bettongs, Western Barred Bandicoots and Sticknest rats which had survived on off-shore islands.

They have designed a special fence dug in with a floppy over hang which prevents cats from climbing over. They hope by eradicating foxes and cats they will be able to use these ark populations to repopulate mainland Australia.

Both the Bilbies and Bettongs dig small holes when they forage which leaves behind a perfect little seed bed for indigenous plants.

The highlight of the tour was seeing the Bettong's after sunset, although they did not perform perfectly for the camera. As the guide said the Bettong "is not the sharpest knife in the drawer" when it comes to species, but it is extremely cute, looking like a miniature kangaroo.

The next day we drove to Woomera 80 km. south of Roxby Downs. It still is a prohibited area, although the village is now open to tourists. A woomera is an aboriginal word for a spear thrower which enables the spear to be thrown faster than by the arm alone. Woomera is the worlds largest defense systems test and evaluation range.

The UK Government, having suffered the German V2 Rocket attacks, put a high priority on developing their own capacity. As there were no suitable places for testing in England in 1947 Woomera was established as an Anglo Australian joint venture. The Woomera Prohibited Area now 127,000 sq kilometers, about the size of England or Florida, was established. It was initially twice that size.

In the 1960's the USA also built facilities there. The national Missile park has examples of missiles and Rockets tested over the last 60 years.
The Woomera Heritage Centre has an extremely good historical overview of Woomera. It must have been a great place to live, working with very smart people at the forefront of research. The town has very happy vibes.

Although Woomera is less relevant it is still used for testing.

The following day we toured the Olympic Dam Mine. which contains Copper, Silver, Gold and Uranium, and is owned by BHP Billiton.

This was a very good and instructive tour. We were not allowed to take photographs. Olympic Dam is named after a tiny water bore and tank established by the Roxby Downs sheep station the year Melbourne hosted the Olympics.

At present it is an underground mine but they want to move to open cut. Like all things Uranium this will be a controversial political decision.