24.3.11 – Names (Whyalla and Point Lowly, South Australia)

24.3.11 – Names (Whyalla and Point Lowly, South Australia)

Matthew Flinders, who mapped this part of Australia in the early 1800’s, was no doubt an intrepid, expert seaman – and only 23 years old - but he appears to have been one with very little imagination.  It was he who named the Lofty Mountains (‘Gosh, chaps, aren’t those mountains lofty?’), and went on in the same vein to name various other landmarks – the Middleback Mountains (‘What shall we call those mountains there, Cap’n? The ones sort of in the middle, at the back?’); Hummock Hill (‘I say, that’s a kind of hummocky hill thing there, isn’t it, Mr. Mate?); and, best of all, Mount Remarkable (‘I say, that’s a remarkable kind of mountain there, eh, what?’) 

Point Lowly

Bill paddling at Point Lowly

We visited Point Lowly today (‘It’s kind of flattish and low isn’t it?  Err – can’t think what to call it.  Any ideas, men?’).  There’s a white, graceful lighthouse at the tip of a point of yellowish rock, low green/blue shrubs, and pure white sand lapped by green seas, today carrying white breakers as stylish embellishment, like a glittering sequins on an acquamarine evening dress.  This was a scene of happy barbecues for Bill and Margaret, their parents roasting pork chops on an open fire on the sand and engaging in a running battle with the flies, while the kids splashed in the warm waves in a sheltered cove near the lighthouse.  Unfortunately, although still beautiful, a new arrival now dominates this peaceful spot – an immense liquid petroleum gas plant, tall chimneys wrapped in spiral gantries, huge domed storage facilities, low warehouse type buildings.  You have to stand with your back to this monstrosity to glimpse the fresh and envigorating place this should be. 

Caravan at Whyalla

Another aspect of naming here is street names – not the actual names, but how to find them.  In the town, street after broad tree-lined street of bungalows had no visible name marked at all.  A few deigned to have their street name painted in tiny letters on the kerb, most had nothing, so that if Bill had not already known the town, we would have got lost much more often than we did.  But out at Point Lowly, where there are only a handful of houses, there are fine clear signs on poles, denoting ‘Cuttlefish Street’, ‘Flinders View Drive’ or ‘Gulf View Road’ at the side of rough tracks through the bush, which lead, at best, to a lonely, slightly rickety shack.

And then there is the name Whyalla itself.  No-one actually knows where it came from, but one theory is that it is named for a local hill, whose name may be taken from the Aboriginal words for ‘I don’t know!’  I suspect our friend Flinders again – ‘What’s the name of this place, my good man?  Whyalla, you say!  Excellent!’

Tomorrow we leave Whyalla, and already Bill feels this as a wrench.  It’s been a happy, memory filled time for him.  But what are my views, newcomer and tourist as I am?  Before we arrived, any Australian we spoke to looked very awkward when we mentioned Whyalla, and some said it was ‘Not very nice’ and others implied worse, so I was a bit wary.  But I found it to be an unpretentious, comfortable town, with no airs and graces, where people were friendly and warm, where life moved at an easy pace.  There were only two less agreeable aspects – one was the red dust from the steel plant that tends to paint the south eastern end of the town a dull pink.  They have apparently reduced this emission hugely, but we could still occasionally see the dense red plumes emerging from the chimneys.  The other was the new shopping centre in the west of the town, surely one of the least imaginative or attractive examples I’ve seen, which was sucking the economic life out of the charming old town centre at the east end.  But against these disadvantages one has to mention the lovely foreshore area, on which we have camped, amongst the trees at the edges of the sand, within the sound of the waves; the long wide shady roads, the lovely Memorial Oval, the fascinating wetlands.  It’s a town you could easily develop a deep affection for, perhaps more easily than for its rather more glitzy sister cities.  From now on, I will share Bill’s loyalty to the town ‘where the outback meets the sea'.

Bill looking at Whyalla from Hummock Hill