Giles Meterolgical Station

This morning the group had a wonderful tour of the Giles Weather Station, which was set up in the mid 50's to provide weather data for the atomic weapons tests at Emu plains and Maralinga. 

It is the only staffed weather station in 2.5 million square kilometres. 

There is quite a ceremony involved in the setting off of a weather balloon at precisely the same time every day of the year. At exactly the same time GMT, similar balloons are set off all over the world, for weather prediction. It seems that most of the work is done by computers now, so the duty operator was only too pleased to put on a performance, and didn't want to let us go. It seems he doesn't have that much to do now. 

There are three on the staff who take different shifts. 

This site was picked out by Len Beadell, and he also was in charge of bulldozing the road to Giles. 

There is quite a bit of Len Beadell memorabilia in the small museum including his original grader. 

After returning to the Warakurna camp ground, Mick gave us a very interesting practical demonstration of tyre repair. He is a fountain of knowledge on the subject. Strangely enough the females in the party weren't quite as interested.