Daly Waters is a town and locality in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

located about south of the territory capital of Darwin at the intersection of the

Carpentaria Highway The Carpentaria Highway is a highway, which runs from near Daly Waters, Northern Territory, Daly Waters to Borroloola in the Northern Territory, Australia. It is a sealed road and is part of Highway 1 (Australia), National Highway 1. The Highw ...

and the

Stuart Highway Stuart Highway is a major Australia, Australian highway. It runs from Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, in the Northern Territory, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta in South Australia; a distance of . Its northern and sou ...

. The area's

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

, the Jingili people, believe the Dreaming tracks of the

Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus ''Dromaius''. The emu' ...

and the Sun travelled through here on their way to the southern parts of the Northern Territory.

History

The name Daly Waters was given to a series of natural springs by

John McDouall Stuart John McDouall Stuart (7 September 18155 June 1866), often referred to as simply "McDouall Stuart", was a Scottish explorer and one of the most accomplished of all Australia's inland explorers. Stuart led the first successful expedition to tra ...

during his third attempt to cross Australia from south to north, in 1861–62. Stuart named the springs after the new

Governor of South Australia The governor of South Australia is the representative in South Australia of the Monarch of Australia, currently King Charles III. The governor performs the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level as does the governor-gene ...

, Sir Dominick Daly. Stuart's first attempt, in 1860, had reached

Tennant Creek Tennant Creek ( wrm, Jurnkkurakurr) is town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the seventh largest town in the Northern Territory, and is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with the western termin ...

. The second, in early 1861, pushed further north but again Stuart turned back. The third journey left

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

in October 1861 and reached Daly Waters on 28 May. The party had been pushing through difficult lancewood scrub and harsh terrain at a little over a kilometre a day. This journey was successful, reaching the north coast near modern Darwin on 24 July 1862. Stuart's Tree has an 'S' carved into it by Stuart during his journey. The

Overland Telegraph Line The Australian Overland Telegraph Line was a telegraphy system to send messages over long distances using cables and electric signals. It spanned between Darwin, in what is now the Northern Territory of Australia, and Adelaide, the capital o ...

reached Daly Waters from the north in June 1872 and for two months a 'pony express' carried messages the 421 km to Tennant Creek via

Renner Springs Renner Springs is a location in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is in the heart of the Barkly Tablelands cattle country. In fact, the town promotes itself as "The Heart of the Beef Country." The tiny settlement is on the Stuart Highwa ...

Daly Waters Airfield The Daly Waters Airfield, also RAAF Base Daly Waters, is a former commercial and sporadically-used military airfield located at , Northern Territory, Australia. As an airfield on Australia's earliest international routes, Daly Waters was used t ...

was a centre for the London to Sydney air race of 1926, a refuelling stop for early

Qantas Qantas Airways Limited ( ) is the flag carrier of Australia and the country's largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations. It is the world's third-oldest airline still in operation, having been founded ...

flights to

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Airforce base, including a

field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile A ...

, and more recently an operational base for joint military manoeuvres. Although the aerodrome was closed to commercial traffic in 1969, the original Qantas hangar still stands, housing exhibits of photographs and equipment from the area's aviation past. The

of the area became the fourth Indigenous group in the Northern Territory to gain

native title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...

over both the townsite and ten surrounding pastoral leases covering an area of . The

Federal Court of Australia The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law (with the exception of family law matters), along with some summary (less serious) and indic ...

had a special ceremonial sitting on nearby

Newcastle Waters Station Newcastle Waters Station is a pastoral lease between Alice Springs and Darwin, supporting about 45,000 cattle in a notably well-watered area of 10,353 square kilometres. Kerry Packer was once a partner in the station, and sent his son James ...

to commemorate the occasion.

Trivia

The main attraction for tourists is the famous pub, which is decorated throughout with banknotes and other memorabilia left by visitors from every corner of the globe. The historic pub was licensed in 1938 to service passengers and crew from the nearby airfield. Other services are available at the Hi-Way Inn roadhouse, at the junction of the

Gallery

File:Daly-waters-traffic-light-northern-territory-australia.jpg, The Daly Waters "traffic light" File:Horses and carriage.jpg, Government Bores, Overland Telegraph (OT) route. Water tanks, windmill, packing up camp onto the buggy. File:Daly Waters Telegraph Station.jpeg, Daly Waters Telegraph Station

Climate

Daly Waters has a

hot semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''BSh'') with two distinct seasons. There is a sweltering, humid and extremely uncomfortable

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

from November to March and a hot, generally rainless

dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The te ...

from April to October. The wet season is highly erratic – for instance only of rain fell between November 1899 and March 1900, but as much as in January 1895 and in January 2009. In the wet season roads are frequently closed by heavy rainfall, which has exceeded in a day from tropical rain depressions on several occasions, whilst heat discomfort is extreme as

wet bulb temperature The wet-bulb temperature (WBT) is the temperature read by a thermometer covered in water-soaked (water at ambient temperature) cloth (a wet-bulb thermometer) over which air is passed. At 100% relative humidity, the wet-bulb temperature is equal ...

s average on typical January and February afternoons. Temperatures actually peak just before the wet season begins in October and November at around but discomfort is less extreme due to lower humidity. In the dry season, cloudless skies and comfortable morning temperatures make for much more pleasant conditions.

References

External links

SMH Travel
{{authority control Towns in the Northern Territory