Andamooka, South Australia

Andamooka is a town located approximately 600 km north of Adelaide in the South Australian outback. Opal was discovered in the region in the late 1920s,^[3] and the town developed out of the scattered miners' camps which established in the area. An Andamooka Opal Fields Post Office was not opened until 13 January 1947, and was renamed Andamooka in 1990.^[4]The Andamooka Opal was discovered in and named after Andamooka.

The road into Andamooka was sealed in the 1990s, but the remaining roads in the town are still unsealed.

Andamooka is the largest town administered by the Outback Areas Community Development Trust instead of a Local Government Area. It is in the state electoral district of Giles and the federal Division of Grey.

Housing

With the influx of work, an expansion of the mine at Olympic Dam, more houses are being built and transported in. Many of the town's houses came from Woomera, a mostly military town that supported the Woomera Test Range and Joint Defense Facility Nurrungar. Not many people live in the traditional dugout style houses of old, although remnants of the town's past remain in the main street, with the cottages of old miners dug into the side of the hill in the main street still standing.

Population

The town at the 2006 census, had a population of 528 people^[1] and its main industry was opal mining for many years. However, since the establishment of the nearby Olympic Dam copper-uranium mine and the town of Roxby Downs in the 1980s, some residents of Andamooka are now employed in the mine or in Roxby Downs, and many others are retired.^[5]

Up until recently, Andamooka townsfolk had to rely on water supplies trucked in from Roxby Downs, or above ground cisterns for the limited rainfall of the region. A pipe line to the township has since been built, although water still has to be trucked to the town's water tanks.

Pop culture

The Mad Max films were shot near and around Andamooka, one of the futuristic dune buggies used in the film still sits near the town's entrance. Another claim to fame for Andamooka is the "Andamooka Opal" that was presented to Queen Elizabeth the II on the occasion of her first visit to Australia in 1954. This opal once cut weighed in at an astonishing 203 carats (41 g)!

Climate

Annual rainfall is extremely low, with the average in the region just 160 mm per year. The climate is arid, with daytime temperatures in summer regularly topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and night temperatures in winter often dropping to zero (32 degrees Fahrenheit) or below.

References