GILES

DESCRIPTION

 

Located on the great Central Road, Giles is the only manual weather recording station covering 2,500,000 square kilometres. Travelling the Great Central Road requires a permit which can be obtained from the Ngaanyatjarra Council, Alice Springs (08) 8950 1711 or from the Aboriginal Lands Trust, Perth (08) 9235 8000.

 

The Great Central Road is part of the Outback Way. The route covers 2800km from Laverton in Western Australia to Winton in Queensland

 

Warakurna, the closest population centre, is 5 kilometres north.

 

The aboriginal community at Warakurna was featured in the Midnight Oil song of the same name:

 

Warakurna

There is enough for everyone
In Redfern as there is in Alice
This is not the Buckingham palace
This the crown land
This is the brown land
This is not our land

Some folks live in water tanks
Some folks live in red brick flats

There is enough, the law is carved in granite
Its been shaped by wind and rain
White law could be wrong
Black law could be strong

Warakurna, cars will roll
Don't drink by the water hole
Court fines on the shop front wall
Beat the grog and save your soul

Some people laugh, some never learn
This land must change or land must burn
Some people sleep, some people yearn
This land must change or land must burn

Diesel and dust is what we breathe
This land don't change and we don't leave
Some people live, some never die
This land don't change this land must lie
Some people leave, always return
This land must change or land must burn

Warakurna, camels roam
Fires are warm and dogs are cold
Not since Lassiter was here
Black man's got a lot to fear

Some people laugh, some never learn
This land must change or land must burn
Some people leave, always return
This land must change or land must burn

(c) Midnight oil

 

Len Beadell cartoon at Giles (C) gladysclancy

 

HISTORY

 

Named (not surprisingly) after Ernest Giles who explored the area in 1874. Ernest Giles  died at the age of 62 and was buried in the Coolgardie cemetery.

 

Giles was originally selected in 1955 as a weather recording station by Len Beadell and the 'Gunbarrel Road Construction Party'. At the time the station was needed to forecast weather conditions prior to nuclear bomb testing at Emu Field and Maralinga and was run by the Department of Defence.

 

The grader used by the Gunbarrel Road Construction Party has been preserved and is on display at Giles. This machine was used in the construction of much of the central roads developed by Beadell and is thought to have covered some 30,000 kilometres.

 

Len's book 'Too Long in the Bush' is a fascinating insight into the development of bush 'highways'.

 

Later the weather station was involved in the rocket development trials at Woomera.

 

The Aboriginal settlement of Warakurna was developed in the 1970s after other communities at Docker River and Warburton started to become overcrowded.

 

In 1972 the Bureau of Meteorology took over operation of the weather station. It is manned by 3 staff on 6 monthly rotation.

 

TALL TALES AND TRUE

 

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(c) caddiebrain

 

OTHER INFORMATION

 

ATTRACTIONS

 

Unknown.

 

BUILDINGS OF NOTE

 

Weather station.

 

ELECTORAL ZONES

 

State : Kalgoorlie

Federal : O'Connor

 

OTHER INFO.

 

Postcode : 0872

Local Government : Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku

 

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