The Barrier Highway is part of the east-west link between Sydney and Perth. It also connects Broken Hill with Adelaide and is on the boundary of the Flinders Ranges and Outback of South Australia. The Highway passes through pastoral stations and the district boasts a rich mining and railway history. Evidence remains at the former gold-mining settlement Waukaringa, 45 kilometres north of Yunta - and the sidings along the railway line.
The Indian Pacific passenger and freight trains make an impressive sight as they operate parallel to the highway. Towns along the Highway are up to 60 kilometres apart. Mobile phone access (Telsta CDMA) is available along most of the highway between Cockburn and Peterborough. In the early 1990s the South Australian Government proposed to close down the small communities along the Barrier Highway leading to a strong and unified resistance from the local communities.
Cockburn
The small town of Cockburn sits on the border of South Australia and New South Wales near Broken Hill. Cockburn came into existence in 1886 (on the SA Side of the border) as a place where the Silverton Tramway's trains would exchange locomotives and crews on their way from Silverton to Broken Hill. The route was extremely important as it provided balanced trading for locomotives with a momentum grade 'up' from Broken Hill to Cockburn and a rising grade 'down' from Cockburn to Broken Hill. This was the main advantage of the route to and from Cockburn.
On the NSW side of the border the Silverton Tramway Company built a station and siding called Burns. Cockburn had a population of 2,000 and boasted two hotels, two general stores, three boarding houses, schools and churches. It contained within its business sector a blacksmith, butcher, baker, produce merchant and carrier. As mining wound down around Silverton, Cockburn lost its importance and also entered into a fast decline. The standard gauge railway line, officially opened in 1970, runs south of the surveyed town limits of Cockburn, and has a new station and a passing loop. The "new" station is now disused. Today, Cockburn, with a population of around 25, is little more than a roadside stop for drivers these days. Cockburn is 50km west of Broken Hill and 470km north east of Adelaide.
Olary
Bimbowrie Cobb and Co settlement
Olary is a settlement on the Barrier Highway, situated near Olary Creek. The name Olary was first given to a nearby well or waterhole by pastoralists Duffield, Harrold and Hurd. This small settlement was established in the late 1880s to service the highway and the railway which pass through here. O'Lary Post Office opened on 12 October 1886, was renamed Oolarie around 1888 and Olary around 1896. After the modernisation of transport which travelled between Adelaide and Broken Hill the village population declined. However it still has a hotel and general store to cater for the transient road and railway workers and travellers. The historic Bimbowrie Cobb and Co coach house near Olary became the scene of a traditional restoration operation in 2010. The nearby Mount Victoria Well and Whim Historic Site is listed on the South Australian Heritage Register.
Olary Goldfield
Waukaringa mine chimney
Olary Goldfield is an old abandoned gold field which is actually cloer to Mannahill that Olary. From 1889-1891 over 787oz of gold was recovered, including specimens, from quartz lodes in slates, sandstones and tillites. Gold was discovered at Wadnaminga in 1888 and the Oulnina Tower Mine was established. The main shaft reached water at 335 ft, and has a total depth of 445 ft. The lode contained abundant pyrite. The mine was more recently worked in the 1980s for specimen gold.
The discovery of rich lead-zinc-silver lodes in NSW at Silverton and, subsequently, the massive high-grade Broken Hill orebody, led to completion of the railway from Peterborough to Cockburn in 1887. This aided the efforts of prospectors in the Olary region and contributed to discoveries of gold at Manna Hill (1885), Teetulpa (1886), Kings Bluff (1887), Wadnaminga (1888) and Mount Grainger (1891). The discovery of gold-bearing alluvial deposits at Teetulpa by Messrs Brady and Smith in October 1886 saw 5,000 miners on the field within two months; the field was virtually deserted by 1889 after having produced an estimated 3,100 kg.
Mount Grainger Goldfield
Gold in the Mount Grainger area was discovered as early as 1882 when it was located near the Nackara Creek. Six years later William Doyle, farmer of Cavenagh Plains, while looking for silver, found some gold about thirteen kilometres north of Oodla Wirra Railway Station. During 1894 several claims were worked on the Nackara goldfield, about twelve kilometres north of the railway station and bordering the Mount Grainger field on the east. A number of shafts on this field showed good prospects. William McDonough, from Carrieton and one of the discoverers of the Mount Lyall mine in Tasmania, named the area the Mount Grainger field after a South Australian politician. By the turn of the 20th century Mount Grainger, about a kilometre from the mines started to look like a mining township.
Mannahill
A former goldmining town in the Olary goldfields, Mannahill (gazetted as Manna Hill) is one of the easternmost localities in South Australia. Watch out for the giant Solar Array as you drive into the outskirts of town. The Mannahill Aboriginal engravings site is 3 km to the north-east. The engravings here, along with others found in the region, are mainly macropod, bird and human tracks and non-figurative motifs such as circles, dots (often in clusters), lines, abraded grooves and crescents or arcs.
Oodlawirra
Oodlawirra or more correctly Oodla Wirra, was once a centre for local government - the District Council of Coglin. A railway service town, Oodla Wirra was the railway siding for 'loco wood' from the mallee scrub for Peterborough (Steamtown) railway workshops. All there is at Oodla Wirra today is the Halfway Hotel and a Quarantine Station where you are required to dispose of all fruit, vegetables, plants, grapes and grape cuttings and soil. All these items are prohibited to be taken into South Australia, preventing the risk of Fruit Flies.Yunta
Yunta is situated on the Barrier Highway to Broken Hill and the route of the Indian-Pacific railway, at the point where the eastern access road to the North Flinders Ranges and Arkaroola leaves the Highway. Located 87 km east of Peterborough and 200 km west of Broken Hill, Yunta was established in 1887 as a railway settlement. A turn-off at Yunta gives access to to Arkaroola and Flinders Ranges. Facilities include two roadhouses, hotel, post office/telecentre (internet access), emergency services, R-7 school, airstrip, community facilities and parking bay with public toilets. Yunta's major annual event is the Yunta Picnic Races and Gymkhana.
Peterborough
A railway town at the junction of the Port Pirie to Broken Hill line and the Adelaide to Quorn, Port Augusta, Hawker, Leigh Creek and Marree, it is the eastern gateway to South Australia for those coming from New South Wales via Broken Hill. Its greatest claim to fame is that it is one of only two places in Australia (the other is Gladstone) where three railway gauges met. This particular absurdity was the result of different state governments being unable (or unwilling) to agree on a standard railway gauge.
Lancelot
The remains of this once thriving north-eastern town 13 kilometres east of Peterborough can be seen to the west of the Barrier Highway north of Terowie. Proclaimed in 1877, Lancelot survived as a town until a short time after World War I. Drought, the re-routing of the railway and the lost of many of its workforce to the battlefields of the War caused the demise of Lancelot. It was named after one of South Australia's most influential men - Sir Lancelot Stirling.
Terowie
Terowie (aboriginal word for 'hidden waterhole') is one of the most famous railway towns in Australia, due to its break of gauge facilities (until 1970), the role of the town in WWII when it was the site of US General Douglas MacArthur's famous words "....I came out of Bataan and I shall return". Terowie was laid out as a private town in 1878 and became the northern junction for the broad gauge railway from Adelaide in 1880.
Whyte Yarcowie
A tiny settlement, once much larger than it is today, Whyte Yarcowie served the local farming community, made up predominantly of sheep stations. The township came into being to cater for the local farming community, railwaymen and travellers on a stock route north which passes through the area. Sheoak Hills homestead was the centre of a soldier settlement scheme in the 1920s. The boost to the local population by the scheme was short-lived, as the blocks were too small to support intense farming. Originally called Yarcowie after Yarcowie Pastoral Station, the name 'Whyte', being that of the Hundred in which it is situated, was added in 1929 to avoid confusion with similar sounding names across Australia. The prefix 'Whyte' alludes to John Whyte (c.1825-1902), pastoralist and a member of the grocery firm, Whyte, Counsell & Co., while yarcowie is Aboriginal for 'flood' or 'great waters'.
Whyte Yarcowie is 13 km north of Hallett; 32 km south of Peterborough; 8 km south of Terowie; 56 km north of Burra on the Barrier Highway. Places of Interest in the area include the village of Mt Bryan; Sheoak Hills homestead; Bird's Yarcowie Hotel; ruins and abandoned buildings of the villages of Canowie Belt, Belalie North and Yongala.
Hallett
A service centre for the local pastoral industry and stopping place for travellers on the Barrier Highway. Hallett 200km north of Adelaide; 33 km north of Burra; 55 km south of Peterborough on the Barrier Highway. The town was created in 1869 adjacent to a hotel built to serve travellers on the north-south stock route. Alfred Williams, formerly of Burra, pioneered the town and built its first store. Like many other towns in the region, its importance was eroded when improved road transportation reduced the need for so many towns in close proximity.
Mount Bryan
The town of Mount Bryan is situated on the Barrier Highway and former Peterborough railway line, 20 kilometres north of Burra at the northern end of the Mount Lofty Ranges. At the 2006 census, Mount Bryan had a population of 137. The town was named after a nearby peak, Mount Bryan, which was named in December 1839 by Governor George Gawler in honour of Henry Bryan, a young man who became lost and perished of thirst during Gawler's expedition. Among those accompanying Gawler were Charles Sturt and Henry Inman.
Once the heart of a thriving farming community, including some of Australia's best known Merino sheep studs, the town today is largely represented by the Mount Bryan Hotel - an old pub. The views of and from the surrounding hills are scenic. A popular route is north east to Sir Hubert Wilkins cottage, the restored home in which the polar explorer was born and grew up. The historic Mackerode Homestead is listed on the South Australian Heritage Register. The addition of Hallett Wind Farm in the late 2000s and early 2010s has seen wind generating energy from some of the ridge-tops north of Mount Bryan.
Burra
An historic former copper mining town, Burra is nestled in the rolling hills 160 kilometres north of Adelaide. The rich lode of copper discovered in the banks of the Burra Burra Creek in 1845 saved South Australia from bankruptsy. Today, thanks to the no-nonsense craftsmanship of its original masons and carpenters, Burra survives as a living museum of the industrial and domestic architecture of the mid-1800s. The ruins of the mine shafts, chimneys, engine houses and powder magazines still stand today as stark monuments to the arrival of the Industrial Revolution in a peaceful rural setting.
