ASIANOVERLAND.NET SYDNEY TO LONDON DAY 12: NORSEMAN TO COOLGARDIE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

The people of Tjuntjuntjara, known today as the Spinifex People, lived in the Great Victorian Desert long before European settlement of Australia, by about 25,000 years.
Today the communities of Tjuntjuntjara and Ilkurlka are managed by Paupiyala Tjarutja Aboriginal Corporation on behalf of the Spinifex Traditional Owners.

One of the largest and highest granite outcrops in the region, Cave Hill provides an area to explore ancient cave formations and pioneering ingenuity with the historic woodline dams on Cave Hill.

When the Coolgardie gold rush occurred in 1894, the Afghan cameleers moved in. The goldfields could not have continued without the food and water they transported. In March 1894, a caravan of six Afghans, forty-seven camels and eleven calves, set out across the desert from Marree to the Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie goldfields. It arrived in July with the camels, carrying between 135 and 270 kilograms each, in good condition. Another fifty-eight camels for Coolgardie arrived by ship in Albany in September.

By 1898 there were 300 members of the Muslim community in Coolgardie and 80 on average attended Friday prayer. Coolgardie held the main Muslim community in the colony at that time. There was not one Muslim woman amongst them and no marriages were performed.

Rowles Lagoon is a Conservation Park and popular recreation destination for Goldfields families and tourists. It is the largest freshwater lake in the Coolgardie region, and the lagoon and surrounding areas are a bird waters paradise. They are culturally and environmentally significant and are included in Australia’s register of significant wetlands. The wetlands are an important cultural site for local Aboriginal people.

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