Jupiter Well Hand Pump - WA

Jupiter Well is located on the Gary Junction road 146 km west of Kiwirrkurra and 210 km east of the Canning Stock Route. The well today offers excellent water available from a hand pump as well as a beautiful campsite complete with pit toilet.

Jupiter Well is located on the Gary Junction road 146 km west of Kiwirrkurra and 210 km east of the Canning Stock Route. The well today offers excellent water available from a hand pump as well as a beautiful campsite complete with pit toilet.

Whilst water is available today from the hand pump at this location, this is not the original location of the well that was dug in this area in 1961 by the national mapping survey team who named the site. The original site is marked on EOTopo maps and can easily be found on foot from this site. Simply cross the road to the southern side of the Gary Junction Rd and look for a faint track and a white sign. Follow this for 200m to a marked historic site.

History of Jupiter Well

In 1960, Len Beadell's team was building the Gary Junction Rd and had reached a point 100 km west of the Pollock Hills when the grader suffered a catastrophic gearbox failure. They were 18 km 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.

Their diary reads as follows:-

"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