Willalooka. Granite outcrop near Willalooka called Christmas Rocks. Summit provides great views over the surrounding landscape. Vegetation lines the main road from Keith to Naracoorte.
Willalooka.
Have you noticed that everything in Willalooka looks relatively new? That is because the area was only settled after the AMP Society began their development of new pastoral and cropping lands near Keith using trace elements to transform the fertility of the soils. The AMP developments also used windmills to access the underground water reserves. The township has a tavern, community hall and shop and CFS station. An outdoor cinema used to operate at the Willalooka Hall from 1961 to 1976. The sand ridge here has outcrops of granite boulders such as at Jip Jip Conservation Park and Christmas Rocks. They are remnants of a former coast line from about 25 million years ago. The nearby Willalooka Angus Beef and Murray Greys Stud was only established in 1958 by Adelaide businessman Alan McGregor. McGregor had other stations near Alice Springs and on the Nullarbor Plains and he was a director of Kidman and Co Ltd from 1992 to 2005 when he died. Other pastoral estates tried to exist here before the AMP and the conversion of the Ninety Mile Desert into the Coonalpyn Downs but they did not succeed. The Hundred of Willalooka was declared in 1921 but little happened here until the early 1950s.
Posted by denisbin on 2016-01-08 09:26:59
Tagged: , Willalooka , granite , outcrops , vegetation
