South Australia (Outback Region)
Woomera
WOOMERA, two hours north of Port Augusta on the Stuart Highway, was closed to the public until 1982. An uncharismatic but well-appointed barracks town, it sits at the southeast corner of a five-hundred-kilometre corridor known locally as “the Range” and ominously highlighted on maps as Woomera Prohibited Area. 

Woomera was established in 1947 as a testing station for the British programme of experimental rockets. Numerous rockets were launched here, including the early Europa series. It also operated as NASA tracking station until 1972. The testing range and the Nurrungar communications station are prohibited areas and managed by the Defence Department.
Don’t expect to find out why at the mostly military Heritage Centre (daily 9am–5pm; $4), at the crossroads of Dewrang and Banool avenues. Models, rocket-relics and plenty of pictures emphasize Woomera’s value as a satellite launch site and joint initiatives with NASA, but the reasons for the creation of the Prohibited Area – weapons-testing and the British-run 1950s atomic bomb tests, contaminated dust from which is still being scraped up and vitrified – are skirted around. 

For a first-hand account, read Len Beadell’s Outback Highways – cheerful tales of the bomb tests and the construction of “some sort of rocket range – or something” by the chief engineer. Currently, the range is used as a nuclear waste dump, and there are plans to land Japan’s prototype space shuttle here.

MISSILE PARK AND HERITAGE CENTRE
The Missile Park displays a fine collection of rockets, missiles and aircraft used in the testing range. The Woomera Heritage Centre includes a museum which displays historic groupings of fossil and stone, Aboriginal artefacts and homestead items.

Named after the European Launcher Development Organization which designed rockets in the 1960s, the Eldo Hotel on Kotara Crescent provides beds, food, booze and conversation with US troops stationed here. The welcoming Woomera Travellers Village on Wirruna Avenue is a good alternative – camping on the lawn is preferable to the beds in the dreary ex-barracks. The shopping centre has banks and other facilities, and next to it is The Oasis, a small leisure centre with a café, bar and bowling alley. Buses on the Stuart Highway don’t go into Woomera but will drop you off at the roadhouse at Pimba, 7km away.