Photos of Central South Australia, from Woomera towards Adelaide

The Stuart Highway, National Highway A87, 2720 kilometres from Darwin to Port Augusta, passes through the Woomera Prohibited Area with the RAAF Woomera Range Complex, a major Australian military and civil aerospace facility and operation. It is used for the testing of war materiel. The Woomera village was constructed from 1947 onwards and had a population of around 7,000 during its heyday, between 1949 and 1971. It was a closed town until 1982, but visitors have stayed here since then. Nowadays, up to 200 people live here, and an open-air museum showing military aircraft, missiles, and rockets may be seen in the Woomera Heritage Centre Aircraft and Missile Park.

Further to the southeast is Port Augusta and the Southern Flinders Ranges. Peterborough is a historic railway town that, in its heyday, had one hundred trains a day passing through. Its prime tourist attraction is the “Steamtown” Heritage Rail Centre, with original railway workshops and tools, a unique triple gauge turntable (apparently the only one in the world), locomotives and wagons.

Port Pirie, on Spencer Gulf, also has railway history in its beautifully restored Railway Station, now a museum; it was initially built in 1902. Its oldest stone church building now houses a restaurant, Spirou Seafood and Salad; hence its new name: “The Church of Fish and Chips”.