The Nullarbor: Then and Now

Since Edward John Eyre’s epic walk across a totally unknown Nullarbor Plain 175 years ago, the area has slowly progressed to what it is today.

A telegraph line was built in the 1870s followed by a railway line commencing in 1912 which took five years to build. The first road was made during World War II in 1941 using army personnel and equipment.

Throughout this time land had been taken up by graziers, firstly along the telegraph line, and later along the Trans Australian Railway Line.

Numerous small settlements were established along the railway line where settlers who maintained the line lived. These were some of the 51 scheduled stops for the Tea & Sugar train that made its weekly crossing from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie. Little more than dilapidated signs now often mark where these places once stood.

Stops along the highway have slowly improved from tin shacks serving a few travellers each week, to the modern roadhouses and motels of today.

Some 370 old and new photographs of the Nullarbor are featured in this book, telling the history over the past 175 years of the development of this vast limestone karst that divides Western Australia from South Australia.