Wiluna, Western Australia

Once a thriving goldmining town of 7,000 people, today it is a ghost town with only a few of its buildings left standing.
Location: 947 km north east of Perth and 182 km east of Meekatharra.
Origin of name: in 1896 when a town was being surveyed, the Mining Warden for the area suggesting it be called Weeloona which he advised was the native name of the place. The generally accepted meaning is 'place of winds', although other suggestions abound. One is that it was derived from 'weeloo', the cry of the bush curlew, another is derived from the native word "billoon" meaning 'white water'. Western Desert language groups
Brief history: gold was discovered at nearby Lake Way in 1896, and within months there were over 300 diggers in the area. In 1906 Alfred Canning was commissioned to survey and build a stock route from Wiluna to Halls Creek. The stock route through 1500 kilometres of desert took four years to complete. One of the most isolated tracks on earth, it is still one of the most challenging 4WD tracks anywhere in the world today. The Gunbarrel Highway was explored and surveyed by Len Beadell, with completion of the last section of the road in 1958. The road was the first east-west road to go across the centre of Australia.
Natural features: Wanjarri Nature Reserve; Carnarvon Range (180 km north); Gibson Desert Nature Reserve; Wild Springs Reserve (230 km north-east); Windich Springs Reserve (120 km north -east); ranges of the Western Desert
Heritage features: Weebo Protected Aboriginal Area