Wyndham, Western Australia
Wyndham is the oldest and northernmost town in the Kimberley region in Western Australia. It is located at the northern end of the Great Northern Highway, 3440 km north-east of Perth.
Wyndham is a port city and a service center for the population in the north- east of the Kimberley region with nearly 800 residents. The original location of the city is located at the Cambridge Gulf - a bay of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf in the Timor Sea - while (as Wyndham East Also Known ) Wyndham Three Mile is today's residential, business and school district.
History
The first Europeans who explored the area, was Philip Parker King in 1819. He was to penetrate in search of a river that would make it into the interior of Western Australia. About the from him by Adolphus Frederick, 1st Duke of Cambridge, Cambridge Bay named Gulf he penetrated into a river that was later named in his honor King River. However, since he could find no drinking water resources, he gave up the search.
Alexander Forrest reached the area in 1879, recognized its potential as a pasture and she recommended Patrick Durack, an Irish immigrant and pioneer of the cattle in the Kimberley. In 1881, he came over, but withdrew at the end on to the Ord River and built his country seat at a flooded today from Lake Argyle place.
Wyndham was not founded until 1886 made last year gold was found in Halls Creek as an important port and trading post in the East Kimberley by John Forrest. Ships brought to the end of the boom in 1888, at least 5,000 gold miners in the city. However, after shifting the gold rush in the temperate climates of South Australia, the population was reduced to a few cattle farmers.
In 1913, the government began Western Australia with the construction of a plant for processing meat, de so-called Wyndham Meat Works to bring Wyndham's economy back on track. Despite a disease caused by the First World War interrupted the Meat Works in 1919 were completed. They were up to its closure in 1985, the mainstay of the urban economy.
Since closure of the slaughterhouse, which detracted from the economic importance of the port for the export of meat, the city puts on alternative tourism. Infrastructural it has not reached the significance Kununurras, but is regularly visited in the dry season.
Climate
Wyndham has a tropical climate, with the wet season from late November to March and the dry season from April to early November. The hottest month is December with an average temperature of 32.2 ° C, the coldest months are June and July with 24.9 ° C with 24.2 ° C. The average annual temperature is 29.1 ° C, one of the highest temperatures in Australia. In the year 1946 333 consecutive days were recorded at a temperature of about 32 ° C in Wyndham. The average annual rainfall is 1500 mm.
Education
In Wyndham, there are two schools and a TAFE campus, an institution of tertiary education sector.
Tourism
Wyndham's flagship tourist is the saltwater crocodile. At the entrance, a 20 -meter-long replica of concrete praises of this tourist attraction. More vibrant copies can be found on a crocodile farm, where the animals their meat and their skins are bred for. Organised tours with feedings take place in the dry season regularly.
In addition to several historic cemeteries are reminiscences to find the early days in the old courthouse ( Wyndham Historical Society Museum ): documents and photos illustrate the livestock, meat industry, port facilities and export. The port itself and the yard is not open to visitors.
Other points of interest are primarily natural in origin. Popular is the Five Rivers Lookout, is a viewpoint on the west bastion (350 m) on the mud country and the mangroves of the Cambridge Gulf. The five rivers that flow into it are King River, Pentecost River, Durack River, Forrest River - these form a common West Arm estuary called - and the Ord River with its own large estuary in the east.
The site offers several different accommodation options and facilities for recreational activities such as a swimming pool or a movie theater. The Caravan Park is the self-proclaimed biggest tourism advertising Boab tree of the Kimberley.
Another big Boab tree is about 25 km inland at the wheel slope along the King River ( King River Road). Like its counterpart in Derby is here a so-called Prison Tree where the tradition to have been tied by Aboriginal prisoners. At the same slopes there is also a small dam ( Dam Moochlabra ) and rock paintings of Aborigines.
Transport / Infrastructure
Southeast Wyndham is the airport ( ICAO code: YWYM ). There are charter flights available.
Main access to the Great Northern Highway Wyndham is from the south. All other lines are all-wheel trails that are impassable during the rainy season. This includes not only the King River Road, which constitutes a link to the Gibb River Road, and the Parry Creek Road ( paved up to the Caravan Park Parry Creek Farm in the nature reserve Parry Lagoon Nature Reserve ) with crossing of the Ord River and various swimming and fishing spots on the way to Kununurra.