Woomera
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A formerly closed military town, or rather village these days, located in the north of the state of South Australia. It’s associated with a vast military testing ground (missiles mainly) that is still off limits to civilians. The village, however, has been opened up to non-military visitors, yet is still run by the military. For those, such as myself, interested in formerly secretive places of Cold-War heritage this is a very valuable addition to a dark-tourism road trip in Australia. There’s an open-air “Missile Park” and no fewer than three indoor museum exhibitions to see here.
More background info: Woomera is a word in an Aboriginal language (Dharug) in which it means ‘spear thrower’ (as in an object assisting in the throwing of spears, not a person). The military picked it as what they saw as a fitting name for what was to be the “Woomera Rocket Range”, a very large proving ground for missiles and other such gear, run jointly by Britain and Australia initially, in the vast arid desert of the Outback.
The terminology gets yet more complicated, as the expressions “Woomera Test Range” and “Woomera Range Complex” are also used, plus since 2015 the Royal Australian Air Force has been running the “RAAF Base Woomera”. The whole range that is closed to civilians is called the “Woomera Prohibited Area”, or WPA (see also Maralinga!).
All this had its beginnings in the late 1940s when the Anglo-Australian co-operation project was begun. Initially servicemen were housed in tents, which was quite inadequate given the climate with cold winter nights and in summer soaring temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius and billions of flies.
Over the years Woomera Village grew into a small town with around 7000 inhabitants at its peak, with lots of accommodation for all the military, scientific and support staff and their families. And there were shops, a post office, recreational facilities, sports grounds and a swimming pool – and also schools. At one time Woomera had the highest birth rate anywhere in Australia.
The test range itself consisted of several sub-ranges, launch sites, target areas and also areas for testing bombs dropped by aircraft. The operation of all this was of course highly secretive, and security rules extremely tight. Staff were not even allowed to have private cameras when on duty in Woomera. All for fear of Cold-War-era espionage.
Initially it had been planned to test intermediate and long-range missiles here (e.g. the British “Blue Streak” rocket), but that ultimately proved impractical so in the end the majority of tests were for shorter-range weapons and SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) and also air-to-air missiles fired by aircraft.
It wasn’t only military tests that were conducted here, though. Numerous scientific so-called “sounding rocket” launches took place at Woomera too, in which specially equipped smaller rockets would fly high into the atmosphere, right to the edge of space, to take measurements and conduct experiments in the ionosphere. This was helping to pave the way for Australia’s own space satellite WRESAT.
Between 1962 and 1975 Woomera was also the selected launch site for the proposed “Europa” rocket, developed jointly by several European countries (including Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, with Australia an associate member). The project ran under the name “European Launcher Development Organization” or ELDO for short, a name still used by the village’s hotel (see below). This was a civilian aerospace programme intended to develop heavy payload-carrying rockets. The “Europa-1” to “Europa-3” tests were largely unsuccessful though, and as early as ca. 1970, several member states dropped out, including the Brits and the Italians. Eventually the whole programme was given up and Woomera was no longer used for such heavy rockets. For that the European Space Agency (ESA) moved their primary launch site to Kourou in French Guiana.
On the military front, though, testing continued. Australia also had its own missile-development programme and some of their designs were quite successful and went on to be acquired in significant numbers by the British military (namely anti-submarine and anti-tank missiles). Re-entry tests for ballistic missiles were also conducted here, involving tracking and heat-shield development.
Britain also brought back a civilian satellite launching programme using its “Black Arrow” missile. This was successful in that one launch put the “Prospero” satellite into orbit (where it still is, expected to remain there until 2070, though it has long been deactivated, except for occasional contacts). However, the costs for all these programmes proved too much for Britain, which simply could not compete with the USA and the USSR. So the British space ambitions more or less came to an end, at least in Australia.
The Anglo-Australian co-operation was already winding down when the Americans made an appearance. In particular they constructed the Joint Defence Facility Nurrungar, a tracking station in an early-warning system against ICBM launches by the USSR. American staff were accommodated at Woomera, especially after ELDO was terminated. The co-operation with the USA rather than Britain at Woomera coincided with a more general trend of turning towards the USA rather than the former “motherland”. But not everybody was happy. Nurrungar became a prime potential strike target for the USSR, and in the late 1980s and early 1990s there were demonstrations staged by left-leaning peace protesters at the site. Nurrungar closed in 1999, not because of the protests but basically because it had become redundant. The Cold War was (seemingly at least) over, and newer satellites could take on the tracking job of Nurrungar better.
As the Nurrungar staff departed, a new kind of dark enterprise came to Woomera: a detention facility for immigrants (officially and euphemistically entitled “Immigration Reception and Processing Centre”). It was so controversial that it closed after just three years in 2003. Today, of course, Australia “outsources” such detention camps to islands far away from Australian soil, in particular to Nauru!
There have been (and apparently still are) joint projects with Japan too, e.g. on the development of a supersonic jet. And in 2010 Woomera was the site of the re-entry of the Japanese Hayabusa Deep Space Probe that returned materials collected from an asteroid.
The decline of activities at Woomera in general, though, also resulted in a shrinking of the population of the village. The main decline was after the British co-operation wound down, but the community remained active. Since 1982 it has also stopped being a completely closed town, and today there is some degree of tourism feeding into the local economy, though on a small scale. The number of people living there today is just a fraction of what it used to be, just a couple of hundred, if that.
The village is still run by the Australian Department of Defence and no ordinary civilians can live there on a long-term basis. But you can visit. And that’s where it becomes relevant for dark tourism, of course, as described in more detail in the next section.
What there is to see: Not all that much that would appeal to a majority of people, but for those with an interest in the Cold War and ideally also with a certain penchant for the associated missile technology will find it well worth visiting the place.
The prime attraction for such visitors will be the “Missile Park” in the centre of the village. Here various rockets, bombs, unmanned aircraft and an English Electric Canberra bomber are on open-air display. Amongst the exhibits are an upright “Black Knight” rocket, various large bombs and smaller missiles. The largest piece is inside a wire-mesh cage: the Redstone first stage from the launch of Australia’s WRESAT satellite (see above). The wreck of the Redstone was laboriously retrieved from the depths of the Simpson Desert in 1990 and brought here. Similarly, the first stage of a “Blue Streak” missile that was used in the ELDO programme (see above) and retrieved from the desert in 1994 has also been put on display inside a wire-mesh cage here. There is a second part of the “Missile Park” across the road with more planes, missiles and a large upright “Black Arrow” rocket.
Adjacent to this second part of the “Missile Park” is a museum, normally referenced as “Woomera History Museum”, though when I was there a new sign on the door underneath the other name now listed it as “Woomera Heritage Museum” (while they refer to the “Woomera Heritage Centre” as the “Rocket Museum” … btw. this terminological imprecision has also led to chaotically confused entries on TripAdvisor).
In any case, this museum was closed at the time I was there – and in fact I had been under the impression it had long been closed. But when I was there in early August 2024 the sign that I found on the door, taped above an older sign, listed opening times (see below) in handwriting. I was only able to peek in through the large window panes at the front of the building (apparently a former church). I could clearly see a large well-made scale model of the EDLO/Europa (see above) launch site by Lake Hart. Next to it was a missile tracking machine (similar to those white apparatus to be seen in the other museum and by the entrance to the Heritage Centre), plus various other bits and pieces such as a heat-resistant asbestos suit. But what may be deeper inside the hall, I couldn’t make out. Anyway, it clearly looked the smaller of the two museums.
The more substantial one is the exhibition inside the “Woomera Heritage & Visitor Centre” (sometimes called just “Woomera Heritage Centre”, so don’t get it confused with the “Woomera Heritage Museum”!). This is housed in a former recreation centre for USAF staff, especially from Nurrungar (see above); the bowling alley and cafe are still there. It’s also home to the village shop, where you can even purchase some Woomera-related souvenirs, though mainly it’s a general (groceries) store as well as a bottle shop.
There are two exhibitions in the Heritage Centre. One of them is about the history of the Missile Range and all its activities over the years and is quite elaborate.
This main exhibition is organized both chronologically and thematically. The first sections cover the early years when Woomera village and the test range were established.
One interesting section here is about so-called “computers”. And by that they do not mean the machines we refer to as computers today, but live human personnel, especially females, who did the computing the old-school way, manually and in their heads, before all this was mechanized and digitalized. Apparently having women working in Woomera alongside a male-dominated military community had its issues …
The bulk of the exhibition consists of sections about the various test programmes that took place at Woomera. There are overview text panels, and then some very detailed extras, including coverage of some technical aspects that can easily go over a layperson’s head (especially the communications and tracking technology).
There are subsections about the “Blue Streak” missile and its role in the ELDO programme, about the “Black Arrow” rocket and its successful launch of a British satellite into orbit, others are about sounding rockets, yet others about re-entry tests, and so on and so forth (see also above).
In addition to text and photo panels, exhibits also include a wide range of original artefacts, mostly various bits of equipment, including a large two-seater rocket tracking device (of which another specimen stands by the entrance to the Centre), guiding electronics, pieces of wrecks/debris from actual missiles launched from the Woomera Rocket Range, and in addition a group of fairly large-scale models of rocket types associated with Woomera. One particularly grim exhibit is a life-size model of a cluster bomb, of a type that was apparently once tested here too, before this sort of bomb was banned (but still keeps turning up in modern conflicts despite the ban).
All texts and signs are (obviously) in English and there are also a few interactive elements/screens, but not all of those were working when I visited.
There’s also a second exhibition in the Heritage Centre. This much smaller one is about life in the desert of this area in general, about the traditional owners, the Kokatha People, bush medicine, the emergence of Woomera village, and there are displays of bits and pieces of then modern technology, including a whole telephone switchboard desk as well as a jukebox/stereo of military-grade proportions. This exhibition also briefly mentions the short-lived immigrant detention centre at Woomera in the early 2000s.
The corridors of the Heritage Centre between its various facilities and the exhibitions are also like a museum, with more rocket models, photos, newspaper clippings (from Woomera’s very own weekly called “Gibber Gabber”), medals, posters and a pair of national flags, one Australian the other Japan’s with lots of inscriptions left on them by the scientists involved in the Hayabusa2 landing in December 2020 (see above).
The theme continues at the Eldo Hotel (see also below under accommodation). Its restaurant features aerospace-related design aspects, including a technical drawing of a “Jindivik” target aircraft on one wall and an image of the launch pad for the “Europa” rocket on another, and is generally quite “space-age-y”. It used to be the mess for those working on the Europa rocket and the ELDO programme … and the hotel kept the reference in its name.
Outside there are also yet more missiles on launchers as well as other military gear on open-air display dotted around the village.
A bit outside the village to its north-east is the Woomera Cemetery. I didn’t make it there myself but remember hearing the stories about it told by one of the participants on the Maralinga tour that I went on a couple of days later. He reported that you can find numerous graves of very young children and babies buried there, who had been born to parents who had been involved in the Maralinga nuclear testing before being transferred to Woomera. So suspecting radiation as the cause of these infant deaths is rather obvious. The disregard for the health of the people involved in the tests, especially in the early days, is one of the darkest aspects of nuclear testing history.
A short distance to the north of Woomera village lies the former immigrant detention centre (see above). This is now a military-run site called “Camp Rapier”. I didn’t make it there either when I was in Woomera and thus can’t say if it’s accessible and whether there is anything of note to see relating to its former dark significance.
Of dark interest would also be Nurrungar, the former “Joint Defence Facility” that was basically a US surveillance and tracking station. But this, like RAAF Woomera or any of the rocket range launch sites falls within the Woomera Prohibited Area and thus they are inaccessible to tourists (although I’ve seen photos taken at Nurrungar that seem to show a tour group visiting the place – but I haven’t been able to unearth any details about a possibility for tourists to go there – if you read this and know of any such tours, please contact me).
One site that would otherwise have great potential is the place where the two launch sites for the Europa rockets are located high on an escarpment overlooking Lake Hart. Most of the installations have been dismantled, but the very solid concrete launch structures are still there and actually listed with heritage status. Maybe one day access will be possible …
All in all, a trip all the way to Woomera is probably to be recommended only to those who (like me) have a keen interest in everything Cold War related and also a certain penchant for missile technology and science. Others may find the time and effort involved in getting there disproportionate. For myself, though, I think it was one of my personal favourite dark-tourism sites (after Maralinga) that I visited during my long Australia trip in July-September 2024.
Location: Woomera Village is roughly 450 km (280 miles) north of South Australia’s capital Adelaide (as the crow flies) and ca. 175 km (110 miles) north-west of the nearest proper town Port Augusta. The Rocket Range and Woomera Prohibited Area extend for hundreds of miles north and west of Woomera Village.
Google Maps locators:
Missile Park: [-31.1983, 136.8252]
Woomera History/Heritage Museum: [-31.1984, 136.8246]
Woomera Heritage Centre: [-31.1999, 136.8261]
Eldo Hotel: [-31.2001, 136.8283]
Woomera Cemetery: [-31.1829, 136.8333]
Former immigrant detention centre (now in military use): [-31.1846, 136.8101]
Nurrungar (not accessible): [-31.3237, 136.7759]
Relics of the historic launch sites by Lake Hart: [-31.0763, 136.4426]
Access and costs: remote, but Woomera Village is freely accessible – quite unlike the rest of the WPA, which remains off limits; costs come mostly from vehicle hire, fuel, food and accommodation.
Details: To get to Woomera you really have to have your own (rental) vehicle. From Adelaide it’s a 5-6 hours’ drive, first along the A1, then at Port Augusta turn off on to the A47, which is the Stuart Highway. Carry on for 170 km (ca. 2 hours) along this route through the Outback until you come to Pimba. Here turn right on to the B97 (Olympic Dam Highway). After ca. 6 km (5 minutes) turn right on to Banool Drive. This takes you straight to the “Missile Park”, the history museum and a short distance south along Dewrang Ave to the Woomera Heritage Centre, where there is also plenty of free parking. To get to the Eldo Hotel carry on along Dewrang Ave and take the next turn left on to Kotara Crescent. There’s parking in front of the hotel as well as behind the blocks of apartments also rented out by the hotel.
The “Missile Park” is freely accessible at all times.
When I was there (in August 2024) a hand-written sign on the door of the “Woomera History Museum”/”Woomera Heritage Museum” said that this would be open Thursday to Tuesday 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., so closed all day on Wednesdays. Whether they charge an admission fee I couldn’t tell (there was no mention of it on the sign, so maybe it’s free.).
The Woomera Heritage Centre as such is definitely free to access, also the smaller of the two exhibitions. But whether the exhibition about the Woomera range inside the Centre charges an admission fee is not quite clear. I actually cannot remember paying anything, but I’ve found sources that claim it costs something like 3 AUD (which would be pretty negligible).
Opening times: there’s lots of conflicting information out there about this too, ranging from between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to between 6.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. … and the sign by the Centre itself I found smudged, it says open seven days a week, but the exact times were illegible. I was certainly there in the afternoon until after 4 p.m.; but it may well vary. To be on the safe side try to check ahead (e.g. with the Eldo Hotel – see next paragraph).
As Woomera is located far from almost everything, you will most likely need accommodation when visiting this place. Within Woomera itself the Eldo Hotel is the only such option. It’s not listed in online booking platforms so you have to contact them direct (email eldo-hotel[at]ventia.com). When I enquired they offered a one-bedroom apartment at a rate of AUD 242 for two persons. This was not in the main hotel building but in a separate block just to the north, with its own car parking. The hotel’s restaurant is also by far the best option for an evening meal.
The only alternative accommodation is at a camping and caravan park on the western edge of the village – or else the roadhouse at nearby Pimba, which offers motel rooms at competitive rates as well as a bar and restaurant (and various other facilities).
Incidentally, Woomera’s climate is supposed to be in one of the most arid in South Australia, but when I arrived there in early August it was raining – all afternoon! And the next day on my drive back along the Stuart Highway there was fog so I was forced to slow down significantly. I reckon that was rather unusual weather for these parts …
Time required: a couple of hours should be enough for most visitors, only those with a very keen interest in all the details will need longer. In any case, the driving time there and back will take a lot longer than what you need once there.
Combinations with other dark destinations: There’d be interesting associated sites not far from here, especially the former Nurrungar “Joint Defence Facility” (see above), but this does not seem to be regularly visitable. The same goes for everything within the Woomera Prohibited Area, including the RAAF base and the relics of the rocket launch facilities.
However, another formerly completely prohibited area with connections to Woomera is the former British nuclear test site at Maralinga. These days it’s accessible to visitors on guided tours. From Woomera it’s first a long drive to Ceduna (ca. 7 hours) via the Stuart Highway and then west along the Eyre Highway. Ceduna is the best jumping-off point for driving overland to Maralinga to join a tour; the fly-in tours depart from Ceduna’s little airport (see details here).
Perhaps of some interest too might be Coober Pedy, an opal mining town some 275 km (170 miles) north-west from Woomera on the Stuart Highway (a ca. three-hour drive). Here many people live in caves underground, and troglodyte tourists can also find cave accommodation here. The area of this part of the Outback is extremely barren, which made it attractive for use in post-apocalyptic movie sets. One such movie shot here was “Pitch Black” (released in 2000), a very dark Sci-Fi story. A prop from this production was left at Coober Pedy, namely “the spaceship”, now to be found just off Hutchison Street. That must be quite a sight to behold and I regret not having had time to visit the place. Recent photos of the spaceship I’ve seen online, however, suggest that it’s not very well cared for and slowly falling apart. So it may become a non-sight/site in the future.
This is currently already the case for another darkish attraction, namely a visit to the Olympic Dam Mine (producing copper and uranium amongst other things) some 80 km (50 miles) north of Woomera. There used to be tours running from the nearby settlement of Roxby Downs but, according to the Roxby Council visitor information website, these tours are no longer operational. Shame.
Of course you can also reach Adelaide in a day’s drive from Woomera – and see also under Australia in general.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: There’s nothing especially touristy in the vicinity, just the arid and barren Outback along the Stuart Highway going north-west from Woomera, if that’s your thing. The scenery is certainly remarkable in places.
The nearest larger town, Port Augusta to the south, may not be the most attractive for tourists in itself (although a few nice-looking old buildings survive), but it has an “Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden” showcasing the remarkable adaptiveness and resilience of plants that manage to survive in the Outback.
Otherwise it’s all the way back to Adelaide.
See also under Australia in general.
