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A Trip Through The Opal Fields

© Kath Hobson

This morning we will head off southwest along the Barrier Highway and across the South Australian border to Peterborough. This stretch of road is relatively featureless but is dotted with small settlements with weird names such as Cockburn, Mingary, Yunta and Oodla Wirra.

Peterborough is an historic Railway town on the edge of the Flinders Ranges. It was originally named Petersburg but with anti-German feeling running high during World War 1 its name was anglicized. Three different railway junctions met in Peterborough and it was almost unique in the World as it is one of the few places that has 3 different railway gauges, narrow, standard and broad depending on where the line goes. Unfortunately through some planning genius, and I use that term very loosely, Australia does not have a standard railway gauge across the whole country. So if you cross borders on the train you often have to change trains as well!!! After the arid countryside around Broken Hill, Peterborough is like an oasis so please drink in the sights and smell of the rich pastoral land and the fields of grain as this will be the last we see for some time as we head off into the sunset!! (For the deserts of Central Australia.)

From Peterborough we head north to Port Augusta. Port Augusta has a population of around 15,000. It was first charted by Mathew Flinders in 1802 and has a history of white settlement. It is know as the Crossroads of Australia and is a major export port for wool, minerals and wheat. It is also a huge power source for most of South Australia with large power houses dotting the surrounding area. Its second major industry is the National Railways. From here we will once again head north to the Red Center via the Stuart Highway. Our next stop will be Woomera.

Woomera is the home of the Long Range Weapons Research Establishment and the Woomera rocket range. Not far from here and part of this sight is Maralinga which was the site of the British nuclear bomb tests .

A little further along but off the main highway is Roxby Downs. It is relatively new town with a population of less than 3,000 and was built mainly to house the miners of the nearby Andamooka mining project. Here at Andamooka they mine gold, silver copper

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