Gismo Queen and her King

Port Augusta to Woomera - Tuesday 4th August

Up early and off to the supermarket - we can stock up on vegies now! We also need to have enough food for about a week and a half so I visited the local Foodland and did a shop. Back to the caravan park for breakfast and pack up. We were on the road at about 10am, doing the easy 179km north up the Stuart Highway. Turning off at Pimba, it was only 7km to the rather desolate town of Woomera.

Woomera was originally set out after WW2 as a rocket testing facility. Laid out by surveyor Len Beadell, the village was established for defence personnel with plenty of housing options and recreational facilities such as a bowling alley, footy oval, swimming pool, picture theatre and pub. These days, most of the personnel have left although we did see three airforce officers in the cafe while we were in the museum.

The caravan park is pretty ordinary, lots of gravel and not much else. We set up before lunch and did a quick drive through town before coming back to the van for a toasted sandwich. After coffee, we headed to the Woomera Museum, which was actually pretty good - and very interesting. I took the following photos at the outdoor museum but it was closed by the time we left the Heritage Centre (including the "indoor" museum!). We completed our tour of town, which is obviously considerably smaller than it used to be, and headed back to the van for drinks, nibbles and eventually dinner.

posted by Tracey @ 9:40 pm