Ooldea is a tiny settlement in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, 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 o ...

. It is on the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain, west of

Port Augusta Port Augusta is a small city in South Australia. Formerly a seaport, it is now a road traffic and railway junction city mainly located on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf immediately south of the gulf's head and about north of the state c ...

on the

Trans-Australian Railway The Trans-Australian Railway, opened in 1917, runs from Port Augusta in South Australia to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, crossing the Nullarbor Plain in the process. As the only rail freight corridor between Western Australia and the east ...

. Ooldea is from the bitumen Eyre Highway. Being near a permanent waterhole, Ooldea Soak, the area was frequented by Aboriginal peoples, and was the site of a camp for railway construction workers in the early 20th century, and the Ooldea Mission from 1933 to 1952.

History

Ooldea was an important camp during construction of the

, as it is near a permanent clay pan waterhole surrounded by sand dunes, first discovered by Europeans when

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 Bri ...

used it in 1875. On 17 October 1917, the final link of the railway was completed at Ooldea, linking the western section from

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

to the eastern section to

. It was around this time that a severe drought led many desert people to migrate closer to the waterhole, increasing pressure on the limited water resources now largely reserved for use by trains. A centenary celebration was held at the siding in 2017. It was the site of a mission established by the United Aborigines Mission (UAM) in 1933, which later included a children's dormitory housing around 60 children. In 1938 an Aboriginal reserve was created covering the land around the mission. The mission was visited twice by

Norman Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. Life Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...

and was home for many years to Daisy Bates, both concerned with understanding and protecting Aboriginal culture. A cairn commemorating Bates was designed by F. Millward Grey and erected in 1953. In the 1950s, areas around Maralinga and Emu were used for nuclear testing by the British Government. Around this time the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Governmen ...

resumed much Anangu land to be used for the

Woomera Rocket testing Range The RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC) is a major Australian military and civil aerospace facility and operation located in South Australia, approximately north-west of Adelaide. The WRC is operated by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), a ...

. Aboriginal people in the area, who were

Pila Nguru The Pila Nguru, often referred to in English as the Spinifex people, are an Aboriginal Australian people of Western Australia, whose lands extend to the border with South Australia and to the north of the Nullarbor Plain. The centre of their ...

(Spinifex people, of the

Great Victoria Desert The Great Victoria Desert is a sparsely populated desert ecoregion and interim Australian bioregion in Western Australia and South Australia. History In 1875, British-born Australian explorer Ernest Giles became the first European to cros ...

) were moved to the Ooldea Mission, which closed in 1952 due to internal divisions in the church. The people did not want to move from there, as they were used to ranging the desert, and had used the Ooldea Soak as a water source for many generations. The people were forcibly moved to a reserve established by the South Australian Government on a former sheep station at

Yalata Yalata is an Aboriginal community located west of Ceduna and south of Ooldea on the edge of the Nullarbor Plain in South Australia. It lies on the traditional lands of the Wirangu people, but the settlement began as Yalata Mission in the e ...

, where Yalata Mission was established by the

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia The Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) is the major Lutheran denomination in Australia and New Zealand. It counts 540 congregations and 30,026 members according to official statistics. It was created from a merger of the Evangelical Lutheran ...

. This was an environment quite alien to them, being desert people. The town was dependent on the

Tea and Sugar Train The Tea and Sugar was the nickname for one of two dedicated Commonwealth Railways trains that were the sole source of provisions for the isolated settlements of the Trans-Australian Railway between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie. History The Tea ...

for the delivery of supplies until 1996 when the train was withdrawn. The longest dead straight section of railway line in the world starts west of Ooldea before

Watson Watson may refer to: Companies * Actavis, a pharmaceutical company formerly known as Watson Pharmaceuticals * A.S. Watson Group, retail division of Hutchison Whampoa * Thomas J. Watson Research Center, IBM research center * Watson Systems, make ...

at the 797 km post and continues to a point between Loongana and Nurina, a distance of . The historic Ooldea Soak and Former United Aborigines Mission Site and Daisy Bates' Campsite are both listed on the South Australian Heritage Register.

References

External links

* {{authority control Towns in South Australia Nullarbor Plain Trans-Australian Railway

History

References

Further reading

External links