Jupiter Well - WA

Jupiter Well is located on the Gary Junction road 146 kilometres west of the Kiwirrkurra and 210 kilometres east of the Canning Stock Route.


While every traveller in that desert knows of Len Beadell’s road team, few people have any idea of National Mapping’s work apart from the name on the maps that we often use. In 1960, Beadell's team had pushed the GJR to a point 100 km west of the Pollock Hills, the vicinity of the actual tree and plaque by the side of the current Gary Junction Road (18 km east of Jupiter Well). This was where the grader suffered it's catastrophic gearbox failure and was still some 18 kilometers short of the current Jupiter Well site. Len did not return to the site until 1962.


The original Jupiter Well was dug in 1961 by a National Mapping survey team charged to recce, mark and observe a traverse in Western Australia from Mount Tietkens to the Canning Stock Route in the vicinity of Well 35, as part of the geodetic survey of Australia. To avoid the need to truck water 480 km from Mt Liebig, the team spent four days between the 20th to 24th August 1961 digging the well. The well was named after the planet reflected in the waters at the bottom of the well late on the night of the 22nd.


"On Tuesday 22/8, we were joined by several other members of the party and set to cutting timber to shore up the shaft and taking it in turns to work at the digging and hauling the buckets of soil to the surface. We had to timber up as we dug as some of the ground was quite unstable, but we were into water!

There was a lot of discussion around the campfire that evening about a name for the place. Moonlight Well was proffered as the moon was about three quarters and quite bright. Also the name Pintubi Well was bandied around as we believed that to be the name of the local aborigines.

About 11pm, overcome with curiosity, we went to see how much water our new well had made. There, reflected in the bottom, was the planet Jupiter. So there was no doubt about it, “Jupiter Well” it was, from that moment. Had we looked down the well at a slightly different time it may have become Saturn Well as the two planets were keeping very close company."

Source; "The Digging of Jupiter Well" by Ed Bourke - Mr Bourkes full recollections can be found by visiting the National Mapping Website HERE.http://xnatmap.org/adnm/docs/JWELL/jwell.htm