Home > Travelogues > 2017 Travelogues Index > Port Augusta to New South Wales

From Peterborough we join the Barrier Highway through to New South Wales

On the Barrier Highway heading from Nackara towards the distant hills near Yunta. Yunta is a tiny town which was once a railway siding.

Yunta township was established in 1887 after the discovery of gold at the nearby diggings at Teetulpa and Waukaringa, when more than 5,000 miners made their way through here. In the early 1890s Yunta was a busy railway town on the Adelaide to Broken Hill line.

Today Yunta is a small service centre for travellers and the surrounding properties. Yunta also provides an alternate route to the Flinders Ranges and beyond, with an unsealed dry weather road which will take you past the Waukaringa ruins. From here you can head towards Hawker, or around ten kilometres after the ruins, take a northerly road towards Lake Frome and onwards to join the Arkaroola road between Chambers Gorge and Balcanoona.

Another disused railway station is this beauty at Mannahill above left, built in 1886. The Mannahill Hotel above right (formerly Railway Hotel) was built in 1889, and contains a local museum. A rest area with toilets is opposite the railway station.

Follow our trip through South Australia to New South Wales on the following pages

Only a rusting tank remains from the railway siding of Mingary.

Some of the photos on this and the next few pages have been contributed, and may have been taken in different seasons to our trip. Thank you for your contributions.

Facilities at Yunta include a hotel offering meals and accommodation, two roadhouses (one with caravan sites), Post Office, Rural Transaction Centre offering internet access, Police Station, air strip and a primary school. A rest area with public toilets is located opposite the hotel. There is a dump point located between the railway line and the highway at the south western end of town, just prior to the 25 kph school zone speed limit sign.

From Wikipedia

Yunta is a tiny town which was once a railway siding.

Yunta township was established in 1887 after the discovery of gold at the nearby diggings at Teetulpa and Waukaringa, when more than 5,000 miners made their way through here. In the early 1890s Yunta was a busy railway town on the Adelaide to Broken Hill line.

Fourteen kilometres east of Peterborough, we joined the Barrier Highway, eleven kilometres south of Oodla Wirra.

One the south side of Oodla Wirra, the Fruit Fly quarantine station helps keep the horticultural industry in South Australia fruit fly free. Please respect all quarantine zones and points, whether manned inspection station or not. Photos looking south, back to the station.

Oodla Wirra has little more than a small hotel and a few houses. A former roadhouse is closed. The Halfway Hotel name signifies that Oodla Wirra is half way between Adelaide and Broken Hill. A former railway tank is all that remains of the railway siding.

Soft colours on the hills along the Barrier Highway between Yunta and Mannahill, in the vicinity of the locality of Winnininnie (above)

At Olary, a small hotel and a few houses is all that remains. The former railway siding remains with a loading platform, siding shed and overhead water tank. There is a picnic area with toilets at a rest area adjacent to the siding.