Marree
| Marree | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
Marree is a small town in the north of South Australia with 101 inhabitants.
location
The village is 685 kilometers north of Adelaide .
Marree is the southern starting point of the Oodnadatta Track , which leads over the settlement of Oodnadatta to Marla . The Birdsville Track towards Queensland also begins from Marree .
Surname
Until the First World War , Marree was called Hergott Springs , although Marree was the official name back then. The name Hergott Springs was given in 1859 when John McDouall Stuart visited the area. The place was named after his assistant Joseph Albert Herrgott (also: Herrgolt ), a German botanist . When writing the place name, one of the two "r" was omitted. Until 1918, Marree prevailed as the name of the place due to the resentment against Germans as a result of the First World War . The etymology is said to be based on the Aboriginal word Mari , which means place of numerous possums . However, this is controversial.
history
The Dieri Aboriginal people live in the area around Marree . The explorer and explorer Edward John Eyre was the first European to visit the area in 1840.
The place was initially a station for camel caravans on the way from South Australia to Alice Springs and Queensland. In Marree, the operators of camel caravans from Afghanistan and what was then British India built the first prayer room for Muslims in Australia.
railroad
In 1883 the Great Northern Railway from Port Augusta , running in Cape Gauge , reached the place. The railway line was extended to Oodnadatta in 1891 and reached Alice Springs in 1929. In the period between 1883 and 1891, when the management of the railway was located here, Marree was important as a loading station for the cattle that were driven here from the "stations" to the north to be loaded onto the railway.
The "Ghan" operated as a passenger train on the route . Coal has been mined at Leigh Creek since 1957 . Since the narrow-gauge railway was not powerful enough to transport the coal, a new standard-gauge railway was built between Marree and Port Augusta , which was given a completely new route between Stirling North and Brachina in order to avoid the passes of the Flinders Ranges . The two gauges now met in Marree station , travelers had to change trains, goods had to be reloaded.
The original route was built by the South Australian Railway , in 1926 finally and completely taken over by the Commonwealth Railways , which was transferred to the Australian National in 1976 . After the new Central Australian Railway opened in 1980 - it begins in Tarcoola on the Transaustralian Railway , approx. 190 kilometers west of the old route of the Great Northern Railway - the entire narrow-gauge railway and the standard-gauge railway north of Leight Creek were shut down. So today Marree is again without a railway connection.
Worth knowing
Every year in July, a camel race, the Marree Camel Cup , is held near Marree . Today the place serves as a supply center for those employed in the livestock industry and for passing tourists. About 60 kilometers away is the 4.2 kilometer Marree Man , an earth sign, one of the greatest works of art in Land Art .
Marree has a yacht club.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Australian Bureau of Statistics : Marree ( English ) In: 2016 Census QuickStats . June 27, 2017. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
- ^ A b Basil Fuller, The Ghan - The Story of the Alice Springs Railway. Sydney 1975. Reprint 2003. ISBN 9781741108064 . P. 127.
- ^ Basil Fuller, The Ghan - The Story of the Alice Springs Railway. Sydney 1975. Reprint 2003. ISBN 9781741108064 . P. 12.
- ↑ Flinders Ranges Research
- ^ History of the caravans in Australia