Wiluna is a small town in the Goldfields-Esperance region (since 2021)[2] of Western Australia. It is situated on the edge of the Western Desert at the gateway to the Canning Stock Route and Gunbarrel Highway. It is the service centre of the local area for the local Martu people, the pastoral industry, the Wiluna Gold Mine, and many more people who work on other mines in the area on a "fly-in/fly-out" basis. Wiluna's climate is hot and dry, with an annual rainfall of 258 millimetres (10.2in).[3] Mean maximum temperatures range from 19°C (66°F) in July, to 38°C (100°F) in January.
Wiluna has from 200 to 600 Aboriginal people living within its community, depending upon the nature, time and place of the traditional law ceremonies across the Central Desert region. The traditional Aboriginal owners (a grouping known as the Martu) were "settled" as a consequence of the British colonisation process that began in the 1800s. In the 1950s a church-based group were supported by the government of the day to establish a mission. The traditional people lost their lands through many different processes, including the issuing of pastoral leases, the discovery of gold and the influx of non-Aboriginal people onto their lands.
Before and after the atomic nuclear testing near Maralinga in the 1950s, many Aboriginal people from at least three different tribal and language groups were forced to live within the mission site. This created many conflicts and the legacy continues today. Much traditional knowledge and skill exists today amongst the Aboriginal residents and visitors.
The existence of a local pub has created much conflict with many people opposed to its presence arising from the conflict and trauma associated with alcohol abuse. The town also has a general store, petrol, caravan park, sports oval, school, and health clinic.
Local water holes are much damaged and overused after years of cattle use.
Parts of the unsealed and flood-prone road between Wiluna and Meekatharra are as of July 2020[update] being sealed, as part of a pilot program in which the Government of Western Australia provided A$1 million for road work contractors in collaboration with the Martu-ku Yiwarra Training Centre.[5][6]
Mines
Mining in the Wiluna-Leinster area.
The Wiluna area was explored by Lawrence Wells in 1892. Gold was discovered in the area in 1896, and within a few months over 300 prospectors were in the area. The town of Wiluna was gazetted in 1898, the name Wiluna being the Wati (Aboriginal language) name for the area. By the 1930s, the town had a population of over 9,000 people, but World War II severely affected the gold mining industry, and many mines were shut down. By 1963 the population had fallen to less than 100. Gold mining resumed in the area in 1981.[7]
The closest mine site to town is the Wiluna Gold Mine, approximately 3 kilometres (1.9mi) south of Wiluna. The mine was shut down by its new owner, Apex Minerals, in August 2007 for refurbishment and resource definition. The mine commenced milling again in November 2008 with plans to mill up to 1million tonnes (2.2billion pounds) per annum and produce initially 4.7 tonnes (150thousand troy ounces) per annum, increasing to 6.2 tonnes (200thousand troy ounces).
Yeleeri mine site, located 100 kilometres (62mi) south has uranium ore, and the region boasts much mineral wealth.
The Paroo Station lead carbonate open pit mine is located 30 kilometres (19mi) west of Wiluna.[8] As of January 2015 it was being placed into care and maintenance due to low global prices for lead.[9]
In October 1960, two station workers named Fred Vincenti and Frank Quadrio were opening a fence gate on the Millbillillie-Jundee track 11 kilometres (6.8mi) from Wiluna when they witnessed a bright fireball falling into spinifex (Triodia) grassland to the north. The debris from this meteor became known as the Millbillillie meteorite and is understood to be pieces of the asteroidVesta that had at some point been knocked off by a collision in the asteroid belt. Although no official specimens were recovered until 1970 it is understood that members of the local Aboriginal community had collected pieces.[10]
Another meteorite fall was recorded near Wiluna on 2 September 1967. This meteorite was a H5-class object; specimens were collected and housed in the Western Australian Museum.[11]
Education
Wiluna Remote Community School is a school that provides education for students from year 1–12, currently having a student population of between 85 and 115 students.[clarification needed]
The school provides a bus as transport to and from the school for the students. The indigenous language of the area is Martu Wangka dialect, however most students speak Aboriginal English.[12]
Origin of name
An early mining settlement of Lake Way Gold, named after the dry Lake Way south of Wiluna, established around 1896, was called Weeloona, derived from an Aboriginal word meaning Place of wind or Windy place.[13] However, the name is also sometimes claimed to come from the cry of the curlew, which is frequent in the area.[14]
The Indigenous people who have always lived in the region come from different tribal groups. Accomplished hunters, crafts people, pastoralists, bush mechanics and people with many other skills exist today within the community.
Warri and Yatungka were a famous Aboriginal couple who died in Wiluna in 1979. They were the last of the Mandildjara people to leave their country and the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Their Romeo and Juliet-like story was recorded in the best-selling book The Last of the Nomads by Dr W J Peasley. This story is recounted as Peasley, organising the expedition, although it was Stan Gratte of Geraldton (OAM) who organised this party to recover them when urged by Warri's brother Moodjeren, who was concerned, due to old age and the lack of young people who would normally assist the elderly, they would not survive the extended drought which was now gripping Central Australia. Emaciated and likely close to death, the couple were brought to Wiluna where they were forgiven by their people for breaking the Mandildjara marriage laws decades before. They died in 1979 within four weeks of each other.
Liberman, Kenneth (Spring 1980). "The Decline of the Kuwarra People of Australia's Western Desert: A Case Study of Legally Secured Domination". Ethnohistory. 27 (2): 119–133. doi:10.2307/481223. JSTOR481223.
Further reading
Garrick Moore: Mining Towns of Western Australia ( ISBN1-875449-34-5), published: 1996
Phil R. Heydon: Wiluna: Edge of the Desert ( ISBN0-85905-216-8), published: 1996, publisher: Hesperian Press
White F. Miner with a Heart of Gold: biography of a mineral science and engineering educator. Friesen Press, Victoria. 2020. ISBN 978-1-5255-7765-9 (Hardcover) 978-1-5255-7766-6 (Paperback) 978-1-5255-7767-3 (eBook)
The Great Sandy Desert is an interim Australian bioregion, located in the northeast of Western Australia straddling the Pilbara and southern Kimberley regions and extending east into the Northern Territory. It is the second largest desert in Australia after the Great Victoria Desert and encompasses an area of 284,993 square kilometres (110,036 sq mi). The Gibson Desert lies to the south and the Tanami Desert lies to the east of the Great Sandy Desert.
The Goldfields–Esperance region is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is located in the south eastern corner of Western Australia, and comprises the local government areas of Coolgardie, Dundas, Esperance, Kalgoorlie–Boulder, Laverton, Leonora, Menzies, Ngaanyatjarraku, Ravensthorpe and Wiluna.
Laverton, originally known as British Flag, is a town in the Goldfields region of Western Australia, and the centre of administration for the Shire of Laverton. The town of Laverton is located at the western edge of the Great Victoria Desert, 957 kilometres (595 mi) north-northeast of the state capital, Perth, and 124 kilometres (77 mi) east-northeast of the town of Leonora, with an elevation of 461 metres (1,512 ft).
The Mid West region is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is a sparsely populated region extending from the west coast of Western Australia, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) north and south of its administrative centre of Geraldton and inland to 450 kilometres (280 mi) east of Wiluna in the Gibson Desert.
Meekatharra is a town in the Mid West region of Western Australia. Meekatharra is a Yamatji word meaning "place of little water". At the 2016 census, Meekatharra had a population of 708, with 34.0% being of Aboriginal descent.
Newman, originally named Mount Newman until 1981, is a town in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It is located about 1,186 kilometres (737 mi) north of Perth, and 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) north of the Tropic of Capricorn. It can be reached by the Great Northern Highway. Newman is a modern mining town, with homes contrasting with the surrounding reddish desert. As of the 2021 census, Newman had a population of 6,456. The Hickman Crater, a meteorite impact crater discovered in 2007, is 35 kilometres (22 mi) north of Newman.
Mount Magnet is a town in the Mid West region of Western Australia. It is one of the region's original gold mining towns, and the longest surviving gold mining settlement in the state. The prominent hill that is adjacent to the current townsite was called West Mount Magnet in 1854 by explorer Robert Austin, having named a smaller hill 64 km away, East Mount Magnet. Both hills had an extremely high iron content which affected the readings of his compass. West Mount Magnet had its Aboriginal name reinstated by the Surveyor General in 1972, "Warramboo," meaning campfire camping place. The magnetic variation at Mount Magnet is zero: magnetic north equals true north.
The Koara people, more recently spelt Kuwarra, are an Aboriginal Australian people living in the Kuwarra Western Desert region of Western Australia. In its fullest extent it would constitute portions of land in the Pilbara, Mid West, and Goldfields-Esperance regions of Western Australia.
The Little Sandy Desert (LSD) is a desert region in the state of Western Australia, lying to the east of the Pilbara and north of the Gascoyne regions. It is part of the Western Desert cultural region, and was declared an interim Australian bioregion in the 1990s.
The Western Desert language, or Wati, is a dialect cluster of Australian Aboriginal languages in the Pama–Nyungan family.
Lake Carnegie is a large ephemeral lake in the Shire of Wiluna in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. The lake is named after David Carnegie, who explored much of inland Western Australia in the 1890s. A similar lake lies to its south east - Lake Wells.
The Yilgarn Craton is a large craton that constitutes the bulk of the Western Australian land mass. It is bounded by a mixture of sedimentary basins and Proterozoic fold and thrust belts. Zircon grains in the Jack Hills, Narryer Terrane have been dated at ~4.27 Ga, with one detrital zircon dated as old as 4.4 Ga.
The Shire of Wiluna is a local government area in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, about 950 kilometres (590 mi) northeast of the state capital, Perth. The Shire covers an area of 182,155 square kilometres (70,330 sq mi), and its seat of government is the town of Wiluna.
Gold mining in Western Australia is the third largest commodity sector in Western Australia (WA), behind iron ore and LNG, with a value of A$17 billion in 2021–22. The 6.9 million troy ounces sold during this time period was the highest amount in 20 years and accounted for almost 70 percent of all gold sold in Australia.
Lake Maitland is a dry salt lake located approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) south east of Wiluna, in the Mid West region of Western Australia.
The Yeelirrie uranium project is a uranium deposit located approximately 70 km southwest of Wiluna, in the Mid West region of Western Australia. The name Yeelirrie is taken from the local sheep station.
Yeelirrie is an East Murchison pastoral lease or sheep station on state Crown land, located approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) south west of Wiluna, in the Mid West region of Western Australia. The nearest population centre to Yeelirrie homestead is Mount Keith Mine village, 45 kilometres (28 mi) to the east. The regional centre is Meekatharra, located 180 kilometres (112 mi) to the west.
The Meekatharra to Wiluna railway was a 113-mile (182 km) branch line of the Western Australian Government Railways that extended the Mullewa – Meekatharra railway from Meekatharra to Wiluna. Wiluna was the furthest rail terminus from Perth on the Western Australian Government Railways system. Paroo was the highest station, at 1,916 feet (584 m) above sea level; the highest point on the Western Australian railway network, west of Paroo, was 2,134 feet (650 m).
Western Australia has considerable resources of uranium, but to date there has been no commercial mining in the state.
Warri (1909–1979) and Yatungka (1919–1979) were an Aboriginal couple from the Mandildjara tribe of the Gibson Desert in Western Australia who spent about 40 years isolated and living nomadically in the Australian desert.
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