Mundrabilla, Western Australia
Encyclopedia
Mundrabilla is a small roadhouse
Roadhouse (facility)
A roadhouse is a commercial establishment typically built on a major road or highway, to service passing travellers. Its meaning varies slightly by country.-USA:...

 community located on the Eyre Highway
Eyre Highway
The Eyre Highway is a highway linking Western Australia and South Australia via the Nullarbor Plain. Signed as National Highway 1/A1, it forms part of Highway 1 and the Australian National Highway network linking Perth and Adelaide. It was named after explorer Edward John Eyre, who was the first to...

 in Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, on the Nullarbor Plain
Nullarbor Plain
The Nullarbor Plain is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north. It is the world's largest single piece of limestone, and occupies an area of about...

, 67 kilometres (42 mi) west of Eucla
Eucla, Western Australia
Eucla is the easternmost locality in Western Australia, located in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia along the Eyre Highway, approximately west of the South Australian border...

 and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of the Great Australian Bight
Great Australian Bight
The Great Australian Bight is a large bight, or open bay, off the central and western portions of the southern coastline of mainland Australia.-Extent:...

.

History

Mundrabilla station, the first sheep station on the Nullarbor, was established by William Stuart McGill (a Scotsman) and Thomas and William Kennedy (two Irishmen) in 1872. Thomas Kennedy died in 1896. McGill's first wife Annie (née Hairkness) died in childbirth in 1879. Annie McGill and Thomas Kennedy are both buried on Mundrabilla Station. McGill remarried Ellen Angel Fairweather of Adelaide in 1889.

Present day

Like other locations in the Nullarbor Plain
Nullarbor Plain
The Nullarbor Plain is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north. It is the world's largest single piece of limestone, and occupies an area of about...

 area, the area consists of nothing more than a roadhouse
Roadhouse (facility)
A roadhouse is a commercial establishment typically built on a major road or highway, to service passing travellers. Its meaning varies slightly by country.-USA:...

, open 5:30am to midnight each day. The roadhouse includes a small wildlife park with emus, camels and an aviary. Pastoral activities continue in the area, and fragments of a meteorite spread over a 60 km range make it one of the largest meteorite sites in the world.

Mundrabilla Meteor

The largest meteor in Australia known as the Mundrabilla Meteor weighing in 12.192 tonnes was found by two surveyors in Mundrabilla in 1966, forms one half of the "Mundrabilla Mass". The other weighs 5.080 tonnes, where both pieces of the "Mundrabilla Mass" fell to Earth a million years ago.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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