Whim Creek, Western Australia

A place not to be forgotten is Whim Creek in Western Australia it's 4,877km from home, it's a long way from home.

Whim Creek is a very small town in the Pilbara region in Western Australia and once had a Post Office known as 'Whim Well'.  The town is located between Karratha and Port Hedland or two and half days' drive north of Perth.  In 1887, with the discovery of gold and copper, the town was born. In it's day Whim Creek had two hotels, a blacksmith, a general store, stables and horse track, plus many more local businesses.  After nearly a century, mining activity ended in 1986.

On our visits there only one hotel, no houses, no shop, nothing!  The Whim Creek Hotel that is there was closed at one point, reopened in 2015 and that's when we had lunch there and stayed in front of the Hotel sleeping in our caravan, there was only a truck driver who slept in his truck cabin parked well in front of us.

It's a hot dry area, even on this day the temperature in winter is 37 deg C.  It is however prone to cyclones in the season.  The weather there, well it can rain, and rain it did in 1898, 747mm fell in just 24 hours.  In 1924 there was just 4mm for the whole year!

Back in the day the Whim Creek Christmas Tree, a structure being two metres high and one metre wide.  It as made from the rip-top tabs of beer stubbies and was said to be the most expensive Christmas tree ever created.  It was estimated that it took $25,000AUD worth of stubbies to make the tree and it took two years to collect all the tabs.

Another odd thing is there was once a camel who was an alcoholic and it used to steal patrons beers.  The camel was apparently moved south to Wiluna suffering from cirrhosis of the liver,  There was also a large phyton (snake) that used to live in the wooden rafters of the pub.  It's eventual fate, unknown.

In 2011, the pub was shut down indefinitely after it was bought by Venturex Resources, a mining company which had acquired the old Whim Creek originally a copper project.  The Hotel in 2013 was bought by the Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation and Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation, who plan to restore and re-open the Whim Creek Hotel.  The Hotel has again closed in an arrangement of handing the hotel to the Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation in 2018.   To this day I have no idea whether the Hotel is open, or not open.

What is a 'Stubby'?

Answer:  A short squat beer bottle, especially one with a capacity of 375ml.  The bottle is stubby (short and thick) in comparison with the tall and slender 750ml beer bottle - in Australia.

We sat here and had a drink, it was rather hot.

The front of the Hotel.

 

Husband's lunch, I didn't take a photo of mine.

The marker on the map is where Whim Creek is. That day we had driven down from Eighty Mile Beach