Koonalda Homestead

Visited: summer

Recommendation: This is a real Aussie experience. Get off the main road and really into the Outback. Home to the Naretha Bluebonnet, this is and incredible place to visit and stay at.

You won't find any signs on the main highway to Koonalda. I only knew of it from other birders. It is about 20km north of the A1 and east of the Border Village. A reasonably well maintained track takes you there and as you leave the relative safety of the main road, you really do feel you are in the wilderness (which, of course, you are!). The homestead has been abandoned for many years but the site itself is obviously looked after with designated camping areas, signage and a bush toilet. You can even stay in the homestead if you wish. I entered, felt like it was a set from a horror film and immediately left. It was all fairly eerie. 

Around the site are dozens of 50+ year old rusted vehicles. It is too expensive to recover cars that die in the Outback so they are largely left by the roadside. You can see them all through the countryside in Australia. The homestead became a graveyard for locally abandoned cars and there they sit. It is all a bit odd.

The Koonalda Homestead is a historic property that is closely intertwined with the exploration and development of this remote region. The first recorded European exploration of the Nullarbor Plain was undertaken by Ernest Giles, who passed through the area. In the late 19th Century, pastoralists began to establish properties in the region, attracted by the availability of land for grazing.

The Homestead itself was likely built during this period as a base for pastoral activities and by the 1930, it had became a popular stopping point for travelers along the Trans-Australian Railway, providing accommodation and supplies. Over the following decades, the homestead experienced a decline in business as the railway traffic and highway traffic shifted and has deteriorated ever since.

As I explored further I found pipits and songlarks on the track north of the campsite and woodswallows and honeyeaters to the south. I struggled on my first afternoon there to get any decent shots and hoped for better in the morning. I had come here for the Naretha Bluebonnet, a rare Australian parrot only found in this area. 

I was up and about at dawn and there was so much activity, it was hard to know where to start. I got the bluebonnet early, although the photos were gloomy and the birds very straggly. Over the next hour I saw a group of 4 and another pair that luckily landed right in front of me. They were even more beautiful than I realised. That blue face!

Naretha Bluebonnet (Northiella narethae)

By this time I was north of the campsite, in open country and there were lots of young birds around. They tend to be a bit more confiding and I was able to get close to some more of the arid specialist birds.