Qualla: Woomera Prohibited Area

Woomera Prohibited Area: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kr.afol, CC BY-SA 3.0. Roughly the size of England, and you cannot legally set foot in nearly all of it. The Woomera Prohibited Area covers about 122,000 square kilometres of central South Australia, an expanse of red gibber plain, salt lake and scrub that constitutes the largest land-based defence and aerospace range in the world. The Stuart Highway runs across it like a thin grey thread, and travellers must keep to the bitumen; step off, and you have entered a place where for more than seventy years the work has been the testing of weapons. The name comes from a Dharug word for the wooden tool used to throw a spear. The irony is not subtle.

Read more: Woomera Prohibited Area on Qualla

Image: Kr.afol | CC BY-SA 3.0

Woomera Prohibited Area: A Range Built for the Cold War

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Diceman at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The story begins in 1946, when Australia and the United Kingdom formed the Anglo-Australian Joint Project and went looking for somewhere vast, flat and empty enough to fire rockets across. They found it here. The area was declared prohibited in 1947, and the first military trial ...

Read more: Woomera Prohibited Area on Qualla

Image: Diceman at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Woomera Prohibited Area: The Country Was Already Someone's

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Itsonlyme at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The maps called it empty. It was not. The Woomera Prohibited Area encompasses the traditional lands of six Aboriginal groups, among them the Kokatha, the Arabana, the Gawler Ranges people, and the Antakirinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara, with Maralinga Tjarutja and Anangu Pitjantjatjara...

Read more: Woomera Prohibited Area on Qualla

Image: Itsonlyme at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Woomera Prohibited Area: Rockets to the Edge of Space

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit self, CC BY-SA 3.0. For all the secrecy, Woomera became one of the great launch sites of the space age. From 1957 it was a global focus for space activity, chosen as the base for the European Launcher Development Organisation. At the height of its activity, Woomera recorded the second-highest number...

Read more: Woomera Prohibited Area on Qualla

Image: self | CC BY-SA 3.0

Woomera Prohibited Area: What Lies Within

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kdliss, CC BY-SA 3.0. To this day the prohibition holds. The Stuart Highway can be closed at a few hours' notice by roadblock to allow range activity. Those few tracks that cross the area, such as the rough Anne Beadell Highway running from Coober Pedy toward Emu, require permits to traverse. Mapping ...

Read more: Woomera Prohibited Area on Qualla

Image: Kdliss | CC BY-SA 3.0