WILUNA WANES

The Intersection

Wiluna is not everyone’s idea of a fun place to visit now, but when gold was discovered there it was on everyone’s ‘bucket list’. In the 1930’s it boasted a population of 7000. It even had suburbs … along with the usual collection of hotels, shops, and other means of depriving the miners of their hard-won riches. Why do you go there now? It’s either the beginning, or the end, of the Canning Stock Route, and the beginning, or the end, of the Gunbarrel Highway. They intersect in the middle of the town.

Actually, some ‘marketing licence’ has been taken with those roads. The start of the Canning today is in a slightly different place to where Alfred Canning surveyed it: Would he have sited No. 1 well 3kms off the route and taken the route 10kms away from a natural water hole? I don’t think so. Likewise with the Gunbarrel; Len Beadell finished its construction at Carnegie Station as there already was a track into Wiluna.

But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good marketing opportunity. It’s great to see the intersection of these two iconic Australian tracks in Wiluna, which traverse surely the most inhospitable sections of the Australian inland. People, like us, will travel there just to see these beginnings/ends.

Grader driver in Len Beadell's books
[We love the dog!]

The W.A. Royalties for Regions program [mentioned in previous posts] has funded lots of interpretive plaques to bring all the history of the town together so you can appreciate what has gone before. It even details the humble corner where D’Orsonga Brothers [now Australia-wide smallgoods manufacturers] first began their business.

Len Beadell in his LandRover

When the coal-seam gas and gas projects in Queensland start generating royalties, the State Government would do well to emulate the way Western Australia really supports its outback towns to help keep them viable … especially when they’ve contributed so much to the State in the past.