Mundrabilla, Western Australia

Mundrabilla Roadhouse, 2017

Mundrabilla

31°50′34.55″S 127°51′25.09″E / 31.8429306°S 127.8569694°ECoordinates: 31°50′34.55″S 127°51′25.09″E / 31.8429306°S 127.8569694°E

Established

1872

Postcode(s)

6443

Elevation

20 m (66 ft)

Location

1,368 km (850 mi) from Perth
644 km (400 mi) from Norseman
67 km (42 mi) from Eucla

Mean max temp	Mean min temp	Annual rainfall
24.6 °C ^{76 °F}	11.2 °C ^{52 °F}	237.4 mm ^{9.3 in}

Mundrabilla is a small roadhouse community located on the Eyre Highway in Western Australia, on the Roe Plains (at a lower level and south of the Nullarbor Plain), 67 kilometres (42 mi) west of Eucla and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of the Great Australian Bight.

Mundrabilla station, the first sheep station in the Nullarbor region, was established by William Stuart McGill (a Scotsman) and Thomas and William Kennedy (two Irishmen) in 1872. Thomas Kennedy died in 1896. McGill's first wife Annie (née Hairkness) died in childbirth in 1879. Annie McGill and Thomas Kennedy are both buried on Mundrabilla Station. McGill remarried Ellen Angel Fairweather of Adelaide in 1889.

Mundrabilla has a typical arid climate; however it is cooler in summer than much of the Australian desert due to its proximity to the ocean. Despite this, Mundrabilla still holds the record for the equal 4th hottest temperature in Australia, 49.8 °C (121.6 °F) recorded on 3 January 1979.

Like other locations in the Nullarbor Plain area, the area consists of nothing more than a roadhouse, open 6:00am to 9.30pm each day. The roadhouse includes a small wildlife park with emus, camels and an aviary. Pastoral activities continue in the area, and fragments of a meteorite spread over a 60 km range make it one of the largest meteorite sites in the world.

The largest meteor in Australia known as the Mundrabilla Meteor weighing in 12.192 tonnes was found by two surveyors in Mundrabilla in 1966, forms one half of the "Mundrabilla Mass". The other weighs 5.080 tonnes, where both pieces of the "Mundrabilla Mass" fell to Earth a million years ago.

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Wikipedia