Very easy towing up the Stuart Highway with hard flat bitumen, long straights and long slow curves. We were expecting the landscape to be very flat but surprised to find a number of long low ascents and descents, quite a few rest stops with lookouts into reasonbly deep gullies and gorges with a lot of flat in between. Also the odd mesa… there’s one curious spot where the road goes up over a long, man-made hump, just to cross the railway line… seemed a bit strange but then realised that the Ghan and super-long freight trains ply this route so level crossings would be tedious and dangerous.

The other thing you notice as you enter the outback for the first time, apart from the red dirt and the mulga, is that one hundred kilometres is a very short distance BUT every individual kilometre is a LONG kilometre… It’s a very strange juxtaposition of distances on the outback highway.

We pulled into the infamous (according to Wikicamps) Woomera Caravan Park where the manager, ‘Hoffy’, has a reputation for being a bit of rules Nazi and hard-arse… We didn’t actually get to meet him but were greeted by friendly reception staff who simply gave us a copy of the park rules, which were in fact very sensible and easy to follow. The van site itself was really quite large as van sites go and you could even stay hitched up if you weren’t going to drive anywhere.

We had a very comfortable stay at Woomera Caravan Park and would gladly stay there again even though there are lots of negative reviews on Wikicamps. Unfortunately the caravan park bar wasn’t open while we were there, it is appararently a fun place when it does open and the beers there as cheap as you’ll find in the outback.

There’s not much need drive anywhere if you’re just going to look around Woomera Village. It’s probably a fifteen minute walk to the other side but Spud’s Roadhouse, the only fuel station, is 6km back at the turnoff to Woomera.

Woomera Village is a weird and eery place. It’s like a town suspended in a time gone by. Basically it’s a square mile of houses with the museum, rocket park, movie theatre, cafe/shop and sporting facilities in the middle. There is nobody on the streets. Apparently there are only about 190 permanent residents there so it exudes an atmosphere that is part ghost town, part apocolyptic wasteland and part deserted zombie movie set! It is truly strange walking through empty, but perfectly maintained, streets, day and night and then seeing a well stocked, super clean, mini-supermaket with one person sitting behind the counter on their phone because nobody else is in there.

There is life though… The movie theatre plays every Sunday night and admission is FREE! “Elvis” was playing while we were there but it wasn’t Sunday during our stay so we didn’t get to enjoy it…
We did, however, poke around the museum and the very interesting rocket park where there’s an old Gloster Meteor and Canberra jet plane plus assorted rockets and missiles that were tested back in the day. Also some rocket and missile debris that showcase just how important Woomera was back in the 50’s and 60’s in it’s hey day.

The photos of Woomera past show an exciting and vibrant village populated by highly educated ‘rocket scientists’ and engineers living a very social life with vital work during the day and parties, soirees and sports in the down time.

Being a Dep’t of Defence town it was also very class-ridden with social activities revolving around three staff mess facilities:

• The Senior Staff Mess;
• The Sargeant’s Mess; and
• The Junior Staff Mess (the Jazza).

These were the social hubs of Woomera, which, back in the day boasted the highest birth rate in Australia as defence personnel’s and scientist’s families moved out there for what would have been strange but hectic and enjoyable lifestyle.

There’s a desert golf course, public swimming pool, beautifully grassed football oval, basketball and tennis courts all of which are in immaculate condition but sparsely used these days without any population to take advantage of them. It’s a little sad to see so much unused, quality infrastructure, that is simply waiting there in the outback desert for some sort of rennaisance that may, or may not, ever happen.

Woomera was briefly used at the height of the Australian refugee hysteria as a refugee detention camp, with a temporary camp being built away from the village itself. Ultimately it was a failed effort with conditions being too spartan and a minor outbreak by the refugees into town… And who’d blame them the way they were treated and kept… It would have been very bleak and dismal to say the least.

The unexpected highlight of our stay in Woomera was on our last night… Our custom has been, where available, to have pub night on the last night of our stay in most places. So we shanks’d it 15 minutes to the other side of town to the Eldo Hotel, which is still an operating accomodation hotel, with a bar and bistro. The Eldo Hotel looks like something out of a 50’s Elvis Presley movie, with palms out the front and a very 50’s oval shaped sign announcing the hotel’s presence. You can feel yourself humming “Viva Las Vegas” in the back of your mind as you approach the entrance.

We did book a table (as strongly advised), thinking that booking was more about making sure there would be something available on the menu than actually reserving a table. Upon arrival the foyer area was deserted but up the stairs there were a couple of young blokes playing pool, out the back there was a group of ten or so probably having Friday after-work drinks and one or two others in the bar. We were welcomed at the bar by two young ladies who very friendly and almost seemed over-eager to serve us… explaining the menu, taking us through the drinks and advising us that wine by the bottle was probably a better option than by the glass (and that if we didn’t finish the bottle that it could be taken away).

They had reserved a a beaut’ little table by the window and with beer and wine in hand we sat down to peruse the menu. The young ladies had also advised that Woomera, being a blokey town these days, meant that some of the meals were very full on and which ones were a more normal size. To our surprise people started dribbling in and by the time we were ordering there were quite a few people eating, drinking and bringing the place to life.

So in the end we very good Arancini Balls to share for entree followed by Grilled Salmon for Jo and Beef Schnitzel for Rob. It was another plate sized slab of crumbed cow covering a wheelbarrow sized serving of chips and vege’s but it was very good. The salmon was excellent and also came with a very fresh green salad and all served personally by the chef. A chap at the table beside us ordered the Lamb Shanks, which when they arrived looked like two whole legs of lamb, slowly braised to the point of perfection… Nobody goes hungry at the Eldo Hotel. And the prices were as good as anywhere else we’ve been thus far…

All in all, Woomera is a must visit place just for the history and nostalgia of the place. It’s a great introduction to the outback never-never and is intensely interesting to say the least… just a little sad when comparing what it is now to what it was in its glory days.