Merredine

Merredine
State :  Australia State : Western Australia Founded : 1890s
Coordinates : 31 ° 29 ′  S , 118 ° 17 ′  E Coordinates: 31 ° 29 ′  S , 118 ° 17 ′  E Height : 315  m
Residents : 2,636 (2016)
Time zone : AWST (UTC + 8) Postal code : 6415 LGA : Merredin Shire
Merredine

Merredin is a city of about 2600 inhabitants in the Australian state of Western Australia . Merredin is located 256 kilometers east of Perth and 326 kilometers west of Kalgoorlie on the Great Eastern Highway . The place is located in the Wheatbelt Region (German: Getreidegürtel) and is the seat of the administrative area (LGA) Merredin Shire .

history

Merredin's story differs from other cities in the grain belt of Western Australia as it was initially only a stopover on the way to the gold fields in the east. The first European was John Septimus Roe , who came to this area in 1836. However, he was disappointed by the drought and the low rainfall.

In the 1850s, loggers came to cut sandalwood , but it wasn't until Charles Hunt in 1864-1866 that the area was opened up. On his five trips in total, he built a series of water holes and dams next to a road. For a long time this was the only connection from the coast to the gold towns of Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie , later also known as York- Goldfields-Road.

The name of the city goes back to Charles Hunt, but the exact origin is unclear. On the one hand, the local Aborigines could have called a large granite rock a little to the north, called Merredin Peak. The other explanation is that it is derived from merrit-in , which means something like the place of merrit (merrit is a type of tree that can be used to make spears).

The first settlers did not settle in Merrdin until the gold rush in 1892/93. The numerous prospectors used Charles Hunt's path along the waterholes to get to Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie. In the same year the railroad reached the city and with the ingenious idea of ​​collecting water at Merredin Peak, the city gained significantly in influence over the next few years. From 1893 to 1896 a wall was built along the contours of the granite rock, with which every raindrop that fell on the rock was channeled through a 100 meter long canal into a 25 million liter reservoir. This ensured the water supply for both the railroad and the city. The facility is still intact today and provides water for the fountain at the Merredin Railway Museum.

climate

Merredin has a steppe climate BSh in the effective climate classification according to Köppen .

Average monthly temperatures and precipitation for MERREDIN - Altitude: 315 m from 1966 to 2010 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Max. Temperature ( ° C ) 33.8 33.0 30.3 25.4 20.6 17.2 16.2 17.3 20.4 24.7 28.5 31.9 O 24.9 Min. Temperature (° C) 17.7 17.9 16.2 12.7 8.9 6.7 5.5 5.4 6.7 9.5 13.1 15.7 O 11.3 Precipitation ( mm ) 13.7 15.4 20.4 23.3 41.2 50.0 51.0 38.8 25.6 18.0 14.1 13.8 Σ 325.3 Rainy days ( d ) 1.7 1.7 2.5 3.1 5.6 7.9 8.6 7.3 4.9 3.5 2.3 1.7 Σ 50.8 Source:

sons and daughters of the town

• Tully Bevilaqua (born 1972), a basketball player

Web links

Commons : Merredin, Western Australia  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Merredin information (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Climate statistics for Australian locations (MERREDIN) ( English ) Australian Government - Bureau of Meteorologie . Retrieved January 8, 2011.
2. ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics : Merredin (Urban Center / Locality) ( English ) In: 2016 Census QuickStats . June 27, 2017. Retrieved April 7, 2020.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Merredin Culture and History. (No longer available online.) The Sydney Morning Herald , formerly the original ; accessed on January 9, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.