A service centre for the local pastoral industry and stopping place for travellers on the Barrier Highway.
Where is it?: 200km north of Adelaide; 33 km north of Burra; 55 km south of Peterborough on the Barrier Highway.
Natural features: Ulooloo Hill; Mt. Bryan; Mt. scrub; Peppermint Gully; Dare's Hill; Waupunyah Plain.
Built features: Mallett Reservoir; surveyed township of Franklyn; town of Terowie (a former railway town which marked the northern region's change of railway gauge); AGL Wind Farm, Brown Hill Range; Pilimitiappa Homestead ruins.
Dare's Hill Circuit
There is an interesting and informative sheet titled the Dare's Hill Circuit Tour which takes visitors from to Terowie from Hallett via Dare's Hill. It is 91.5 km long and passes Waupunyah Plain, Franklyn Homestead, Pandappa Homestead, Ketchowla Homestead, the Piltimitiappa Ruins, Goyders Line (that famous limit of agriculture) is crossed twice and then there is Hallett and Whyte-Yarcowie. There's no petrol on the route and it is entirely on dirt roads. A true, edge of the desert, experience. The brochure tells you everything you could ever want to know about the area.
Ketchowla Historic Reserve has fine examples of Aboriginal painting and carving. It is located in a number of dry channels and there are a number of examples of red ochre animal tracks as well as geometric engravings.
Brief History:
The first European to see the Terowie-Hallett area was probably the explorer Edward John Eyre who passed through the district in July 1839. By 1842 John and Alfred Hallett, early pastoralists, had settled in the area and the following year more land was taken up in the area by John Chewings, William Dare, George Hiles, Dr William James and Dr John Harris Browne. 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.
Origin of name: recalls pastoralist brothers John and Alfred Hallett who ran Willogoleche Station in the area. Though decimated by a drought in the 1860s, the brothers clawed back from the brink of ruin to rebuilt their pastoral empire.
