Woomera SA

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Although it was a slight detour from our journey northward, we took the time to visit the small town of Woomera, which lies within a Department of Defence owned and operated facility. In common usage, "Woomera" refers to the wider RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC), a large Australian Defence Force aerospace and systems testing range (the 'Woomera Test Range' (WTR)), covering an area of approximately 127,000 square kilometres It is the world’s largest test and evaluation range for ground based, air and space defence systems testing. The Woomera Restricted Airspace (WRX) includes all the airspace over Woomera Test Range from ground to outer space.

Woomera Village initially operated as a "closed town" between 1947 and 1982, when the facility supported the operations of the Woomera Rocket Range during the Anglo-Australia Project. This cold-war project focused on the development of long-range weapons systems, principally to counter the growing intercontinental ballistic missile threat from the former Soviet Union. The range was named after the Aboriginal spear throwing implement, the Woomera, which extends the range a spear can be thrown.

It was interesting to visit the National Missile Park in the centre of the village, which features aircraft, rockets, bombs and missiles covering the full period of the Anglo-Australian Project operations, and the Woomera Heritage Centre, which features an introductory audio visual presentation and an interpretive gallery that tells the story of this site. We are, however, only seeing long superseded missile technology on display. The RAAF Base is located nearby, however, public access to the base is not permitted. Woomera is an eerie place, and reminded me of Area 51, a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range.

Within the village is an observatory owned by the Department of Defence and operated by local star gazing volunteers. Although it was a clear freezing night (Kim elected to stay in the caravan and read) I ventured out with my snow jacket and beanie, and was wowed by two hours of viewing the sights of the heavens. It was actually the first time I had heard a clear explanation of what we see when gaze up at the Milky Way. The Milky Way is a huge collection of stars, dust and gas, and it is called a spiral galaxy, because if you could view it from the top or bottom, it would look like a spinning pinwheel. When we look up we are actually viewing a cross section of that spiral wheel. The Heavens Shall Declare. Whilst we were gazing upward, the volunteer astronomer pointed out a satellite crossing overhead from a north west to south east direction. I thought the restricted airspace over Woomera included outer space? Maybe the Chinese or Russians didn’t get the memo.

Despite the eeriness, I really enjoyed visiting Woomera.

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