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Wayne FitzSimons
เข้าร่วมเมื่อ 24 ก.พ. 2008
The Koonalda Homestead (Old Eyre Highway - South Australia)
Koonalda was a sheep station situated just off the Old Eyre Highway some 100 kilometres west of the Nullarbor Roadhouse in South Australia. From the mid 1950's up until the mid 1970's Koonalda Homestead was a fuel & rest stop for those people travelling the Nullarbor during that period. As the Homestead adjoined the Old Eyre Highway (north of the new bitumen highway) a large car graveyard developed alongside it from vehicles that did not make it across the Nullarbor Plain. When I first travelled it there was 612 miles of unmade appallingly bad road across what is one of the largest limestone plains in the world.
Nearby Koonalda Cave enabled the Gurney family to establish the sheep station as it provided an underground water supply. The homestead has a wide surrounding verandah and a recently replaced galvanised iron roof. The interior has seven main rooms, a bathroom & a laundry area on the enclosed rear verandah. A large concrete water tank adjoins the eastern side of the homestead. Sleepers from the Trans Australia Railway near Cook were used to build the homestead's outside walls & fences. The sleepers were transported 20 at a time on a small truck to 'Koonalda'. The timber windows & some of the doors are re-used material from the old telegraph station (periodically covered by sand dunes) at Eucla. This is a rare example of World War II construction in the outback. The movie show the main car graveyard; there is another about half as big nearby to the east.
Nearby Koonalda Cave enabled the Gurney family to establish the sheep station as it provided an underground water supply. The homestead has a wide surrounding verandah and a recently replaced galvanised iron roof. The interior has seven main rooms, a bathroom & a laundry area on the enclosed rear verandah. A large concrete water tank adjoins the eastern side of the homestead. Sleepers from the Trans Australia Railway near Cook were used to build the homestead's outside walls & fences. The sleepers were transported 20 at a time on a small truck to 'Koonalda'. The timber windows & some of the doors are re-used material from the old telegraph station (periodically covered by sand dunes) at Eucla. This is a rare example of World War II construction in the outback. The movie show the main car graveyard; there is another about half as big nearby to the east.
มุมมอง: 81 230
Looks like an old graveyard in a dystopian world
It is so fucking scary how many car’s are out in rural Australia l remember loads from childhood and l was always left thinking what happened to the people, there was a massive one out the back of Berrima near Goulburn NSW. Other countries line their up for use but not here their just dragged in like rubbish
This brings back good memories, first went across in 1963 in a Black Morris Oxford , People called Gurneys owned the station and later in years got to know their daughter when she came to board in PtLincoln, often wondered what happened to her as she moved back to that area in the late seventies.
Shame he didn't get out of the car so the camera wasn't facing an earthquake.
It was 46C degrees on that day with zillions of flies. You get out and video it.
@@FitzyOz Click on my channel watch my video's. Then apologise to me afterward.
@@AaronHahnStudios I could not possibly be less interested in any further communication with you.
@@FitzyOz That attitude is why you wouldn't get out of the car.
This brings back memories of my youth. I first visited Koonalda just before Xmas 1965 and then on my return journey about 3 weeks later. I was driving an S series Valiant which was almost new, back then. What an adventure that was for a 17 year old!
All that rat rod potential. Just sitting there.
Beauty mk1 mini there.
Nostalgia
many years ago when used to go through Koonalda. Dad my sister and I climbed down into Koonalda cave which only had a rope lader we had a tilly light never went in far
You are braver than I am. :)
See. Old Holdens aren't that rare at all, still lying all round the countryside.
Well done Wayne, brings back old memories.
l have seen a few places coming up from Melbourne coming back on the A15 back way to brisbane with some old gems on property's you can see them from the road
What a shame! All those good old classic cars, wrecked. I really love old Holdens and old 1970s falcons. The car graveyard looks like this old swampy clearing just off from an old Canadian highway I was going down once. the clearing was filled with old abandoned cars that were stuck in the mud to deep to be removed. Classic cars like the old Meteor Rideau and Monarch were down there rotting away. Again, what a shame.
It's nice to go to places you went to years ago
Are there any cars that broke down on the sealed road in the 70's?
Mate, you brought the memories flooding back. I did this trip with my parents in a Simca. I can still smell the bulldust and taste the roast rabbit we got for lunch. Thank you.
On the old road, there used to be an old refrigerator at the turn-off track into Konalda Homestead. I can still "see it" in my minds eye even now, 44 years later. I have a feeling that it was there as a sort of mailbox but then surely any mail would have been delivered direct to the homestead itself. Next time I do the Nullarbor trip again, I'm going to make a point of going via Koonalda & if I can find any trace of Ivy Tanks, I'd love to see that again too. All with the video camera of course.
There is a smaller second car-graveyard about 300 metres east of the homestead building which I didn't film.
SEE GPS CORRDINATES IN POST BELOW: Accessible in a 2WD car but a caravan might need good ground clearance at the rear. Road might be bad if wet. Homestead is 14km north from turnoff. Not far in there's a choice of a left turn or straight ahead. Go straight ahead. If you go left it meets up with the same road further on anyway but it's rough. At about 13km you reach a T-intersection with old Eyre Highway. You will see ahead and slightly to the left, the entrance road to the homestead.
KOONALDA HOMESTEAD GPS COORDINATES: Turnoff is 94.6km West of Nullabor Roadhouse OR 86.0km East of the Border Village (near WA Border) Homestead is 14Km North off highway. Turnoff from Highway: S 31 degrees 34' mins 32.2" secs E 129 degrees 54' mins 32.0"secs Homestead is: S 31 degrees 27' mins 22.6" secs E 129 degrees 51' mins 31.1"secs
I believe a permit to stay at Koonalda can be obtained from the Ceduna Office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources on (08) 8625 3144.
@club1967 Yes I did take a teensy bit of footage inside the homestead but not terribly interesting. Central corridor runs front to back with empty rooms either side. I think green painted walls. In back room an old fridge with 1970's soft drink prices written on the door. The Parks Dept re-roofed the place with new corrugated iron to preserve it. You can stay there (although the nearby Shearer's Hut is apparently better) and you're supposed to get a permit to do so. We didn't stay. Exremely hot.
[Cont'd] First trip through Ivy Shed Tanks was pitch black night having travelled hours on the bad road. Headlights lit only the road, so my mind assumed that there was scrub and trees either side (as it was when I left the daylight). At Ivy Shed Tanks there was a single light bulb swinging above the petrol bowser. When leaving I gingerly reversed to avoid probably trees etc. Next time through in daylight I saw it was completely devoid of anything and I could have driven off in any direction. :)
@brickpaverr One of my trips on the old road was in a then-new 1971 VW Beetle (which I think from memory was the first model with McPherson strut suspension rather than the indestructible torsion bar). The old road destroyed the damping in both struts so the rest of the ride to Perth was like a pogo stick. (Fixed under warranty in Perth). The very first time I went through Ivy Shed Tanks it was very late on a pitch black night - (running out of characters cont'd next comment).
Fantastic to see Koonalda again. Last time that I was there was in January 1968 when I called in with a broken engine/gearbox single mount on my 1964 VW beetle. I put my VW over the pit in the shed there and and used fencing wire (universal clamp) that I had scrounged up, to weave a support under the mount point and anchored on both sides of the VW floor pan. You wouldn't happen to have any footage of "Ivy Tanks" would you?. It was on the old Eyre Highway dirt road and long gone now.
brickpaver
Train travel certainly looked more attractive back then
Pimp My Ride nightmares are made of this.