Oodnadatta Aboriginal School
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Oodnadatta is a small, remote
outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a n ...
town and locality in the Australian state of
South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
, located north-north-west of the state capital of
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 ...
by road or direct, at an altitude of . The unsealed Oodnadatta Track, an
outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a n ...
road popular with tourists, runs through the town. In the , there were 74 dwellings and the population was 318. Town facilities include a hotel, caravan park, post office, general stores, police station, hospital, fuel and minor mechanical repairs. The old railway station now serves as a museum. From the 1880s to the 1930s, Oodnadatta was a base for camel drivers and their animals, which provided cartage when the railway was under construction and along outback tracks before roads were established. After the railway line was lifted, Oodnadatta's role changed from that of a government service centre and supply depot for surrounding pastoral properties to a residential freehold town for Aboriginal families who, moving from cattle work, bought empty houses as their railway employee occupants left.


Origin of name

The name was said to be derived from the
Arrernte Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia. It may refer to: * Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?) * Arrernte people, Aboriginal Australi ...
word ''utnadata'', meaning "yellow blossom of the mulga". However, mulga trees do not grow anywhere near the town. An alternative explanation is that it derived from ''coodnadatta'' or ''kudnadatta'', meaning "dead man's poo": the first two syllables encompass "rotten" or "excreta" and the second two refer to "there".


History

For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal tribes visited the place where Oodnadatta is located as a reliable source of water on their trade route; there was no settlement at Oodnadatta itself.
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 ...
explored the region in 1859. His route was generally followed by the surveyors of the Overland Telegraph Line, completed in 1872.
Alfred Giles Alfred Giles may refer to: * Alfred Giles (architect) (1853–1920), Texas architect * Alfred Giles (civil engineer) (1816–1895), British civil engineer and politician * Alfred Giles (explorer) (1846–1931), South Australian bushman, drover and ...
referred to a place called the Yellow Waterhole, or Angle Pole, later known as Hookey's Waterhole and The Peake, near Oodnadatta. The course chosen for the Central Australian Railway likewise followed the route because a water supply was essential for steam locomotives. From 1891, Oodnadatta was an important station on the railway until the line closed in 1981, to be replaced in 2004 by the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor about to the west.


Telegraphs, camels and railways

Angle Pole () is the point near Oodnadatta where the direction of the telegraph line changed to a more northerly direction. It is near the Peake cattle station, also known as "The Peake", or Freeling Springs. The ruins of Peake telegraph station exist on the station today. Alfred Giles refers to his only meeting with the explorer
Ernest Giles William Ernest Powell Giles (20 July 1835 – 13 November 1897), best known as Ernest Giles, was an Australian explorer who led five major expeditions to parts of South Australia and Western Australia. Early life Ernest Giles was born in Bris ...
(no relation) at "the Peake" in the 1870s. By the 1880s the telegraph route was being used by camel trains, many led by "Afghan" cameleers (actually from many different places in the Indian subcontinent), or "Ghans", as they became known, who were brought to Australia for the task of hauling goods into Central Australia for pioneer settlers. Many of the cameleers settled in Oodnadatta and Marree, some with families and some marrying, mainly Aboriginal women. In the 1880s, Angle Pole was identified as the proposed terminus for the extension of the Great Northern Railway. When the railway was built, a town was established here, and in October 1890 was proclaimed a government township and renamed Oodnadatta. In 1889, Angle Pole was also proposed as the south-eastern terminus of a
land grant railway A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...
from
Roebuck Bay Roebuck Bay is a bay on the coast of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Its entrance is bounded in the north by the town of Broome, and in the south by Bush Point and Sandy Point. It is named after , the ship captained by William ...
in
Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
. This railway was proposed by a London syndicate and would have been about 1000 miles (1600 km) long, with the wider gauge. However this was never built. The town remained the terminus of the Great Northern until the line was extended to
Alice Springs Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' Al ...
in 1929. The line became known as the Central Australia Railway and the train service on the line was known as
the Ghan ''The Ghan'' is an experiential tourism oriented passenger train service that operates between the northern and southern coasts of Australia, through the cities of Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin on the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor. O ...
in honour of the Afghan cameleers. The railway was built with narrow gauge () tracks, and train traffic was frequently disrupted by washouts and other damage to the trackbed, leading to a slow and unreliable service. The railway through Oodnadatta was closed and a new
standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...
line was built to the west, bypassing Oodnadatta, and opening in October 1980.


World War II

Oodnadatta's busiest era was World War II when the
Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army (Austral ...
and the
Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
set up local facilities to service troop trains and aircraft en route to Darwin.


21st century

Tourist traffic along the Oodnadatta Track and the mining industry keep the village alive. The Aboriginal school is the biggest employer. In 2018, the federal government announced a major upgrade to the Track, to better serve both the tourists and truck drivers on this major freight and cattle transport route.


Access, facilities, attractions

Oodnadatta can be reached by an unsealed road from
Coober Pedy Coober Pedy () is a town in northern South Australia, north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. The town is sometimes referred to as the "opal capital of the world" because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there. Coober Pedy is ...
or via the unsealed Oodnadatta Track from Marree to Marla or from the north via Finke/Aputula, NT (on the "Old Ghan Heritage Trail"). The Pink Roadhouse (so-called because it is painted bright pink) provides petrol, a general store, meals, a variety of accommodation, and
post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...
facilities. The Transcontinental Hotel, built in the 1890s, is on the same side of the road, as is the caravan park. Oodnadatta is serviced twice weekly by the
Coober Pedy Oodnadatta One Day Mail Run The Coober Pedy Oodnadatta One Day Mail Run is a 4WD mail service in the outback of South Australia. Twice a week, the OKA 4wd, OKA bus travels from Coober Pedy to William Creek to Oodnadatta and then back to Coober Pedy, on unsealed roads. Th ...
. The
OKA Oka or OKA may refer to: Cars * Oka (automobile), a small car designed by AvtoVAZ and produced by ZMA and SeAZ * OKA 4wd, a large 4-wheel-drive vehicle made in Western Australia by OKA Military * 2B1 Oka, Soviet 420 mm self-propelled mor ...
mail truck also carries some general freight and passengers. The
air strip An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publi ...
adjacent to the town, originally built during
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 ...
, has a sealed surface.


Historic buildings

The historic Oodnadatta railway station, now a museum, is listed on the
South Australian Heritage Register The South Australian Heritage Register, also known as the SA Heritage Register, is a statutory register of historic places in South Australia. It extends legal protection regarding demolition and development under the ''Heritage Places Act 1993'' ...
.


Demographics

At the 2016 census, the population of Oodnadatta was 204 with Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people making up 53.3% of the population. This was a decrease on 2006, when the population was 277, of whom less than half were Indigenous. In 2016, 61.7% of people spoke only English at home. Other languages spoken included Yankunytjatjara 4.7%,
Luritja The Luritja or Loritja people, also known as Kukatja or Kukatja-Luritja, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. Their traditional lands are immediately west of the Derwent River, that forms a frontier with the Arrernte p ...
3.6%,
Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
1.6%, Tagalog 1.6% and
Pitjantjatjara The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are vari ...
1.6%.


Oodnadatta Aboriginal School

The Oodnadatta Aboriginal School, located in Kutaya Terrace, is a school operated by the Government of South Australia offering education from Reception to Year 12. In 2018, the school had a total enrolment of 14 students, of whom 86% were indigenous, and a teaching staff of three.


Climate

Oodnadatta has a hot desert climate (
Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
''
BWh Bust/waist/hip measurements (informally called 'body measurements' or ′vital statistics′) are a common method of specifying clothing sizes. They match the three inflection points of the female body shape. In human body measurement, these th ...
'') and has also recorded the highest reliably measured maximum temperature in Australia: 50.7 °C (123.3 F) on 2 January 1960.Global Measured Extremes of Temperature and Precipitation.
National Climatic Data Center. Retrieved 21 June 2007.
This record stood unequalled until 13 January 2022, when a temperature of 50.7 °C (123.3 F) was measured in Onslow, Western Australia, thus equalling Oodnadatta's record. A higher temperature was recorded at Cloncurry in 1889; however, this has since been shown to have been recorded in a non-standard enclosure and likely to have been considerably cooler than first believed. There is a large sign in Oodnadatta claiming the town is "The driest town, the driest state of the driest Continent".


Governance

Oodnadatta is located within the federal
Division of Grey The Division of Grey is an Australian electoral division in South Australia. The division was one of the seven established when the former Division of South Australia was redistributed on 2 October 1903 and is named for Sir George Grey, who wa ...
, the state
electoral district of Stuart Stuart is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. At 323,131 km², it is a vast country district extending from the Spencer Gulf as far as the Northern Territory border in the north and the Queenslan ...
, the
Pastoral Unincorporated Area A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
of South Australia and the state’s Far North region. In the absence of a local government authority, the community in Oodnadatta receives municipal services from a state government agency, the Outback Communities Authority.


Oodnadatta on Mars

The name Oodnadatta has been used as a name for a crater on the planet
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
.Categories for Naming Features on Planets and Satellites
Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, USGS Astrogeology Science Center,
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...


See also

*
List of extreme temperatures in Australia The highest temperature ever recorded in Australia is , which was recorded on 2 January 1960 at Oodnadatta, South Australia and 13 January 2022 at Onslow, Western Australia. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Australia is , at Charlotte Pa ...


References


Notes


Citations


Further reading


Oodnadatta
(on Flinders Ranges Research)
Oodnadatta
(Aussie Towns)

by Roderick Eime
Oodnadatta Pioneer Cemetery
with photos of headstones


External links

{{authority control Towns in South Australia Aboriginal communities in South Australia Far North (South Australia) Places in the unincorporated areas of South Australia