The land of Australia that was forgotten at the time: in the mysterious stretch of outback that has existed in its own secret time zone for almost 150 years… and no one really knows why

In a remote area of ​​the Australian Outback lie five small towns that exist outside of time as we know it.

The 70 people who call these communities home live in their own secret time zone, but no one knows exactly why.

Australia has three official time zones: Eastern Standard Time (AEST) on the east coast and Tasmania; Central Standard Time in South Australia and the NT, which is 30 minutes behind AEST; and Western Standard Time, two hours behind AEST.

But there is also the unofficial and little-known Central Western Time (CWT) – one hour and 15 minutes behind AEST – which is used in just five towns on the Eyre Highway in western SA and eastern WA.

If you are confused, don’t worry. It also sometimes baffles the locals who live along the 285km stretch of the Nullarbor Plain – and that’s without taking daylight saving time into account.

“You’re often invited to community events and arrive 45 minutes late, which I’ve done quite a few times,” Sergeant Dale Grice of Eucla Police told Daily Mail Australia.

Eucla, along with Cocklebiddy, Madura and Mundrabilla in WA and Border Village in SA, are the five roadhouse locations that use the unofficial CWT.

The total population of the area is about 70 people, not counting those who stay overnight in the roadhouses. Eucla’s 37 inhabitants make it the largest of the very small towns.

Due to its location, Eucla was the perfect place for a telegraph station in 1877 that connected the west coast of Australia with the east.

The origin of the unique time zone is not certain, but it may have begun to avoid confusion at the telegraph station as it is on the border between Western Australia and South Australia, which have different time zones.

South Australia’s time zone has been based on the half hour since 1899, so the CWT zone between SA and WA is based on the quarter hour.

The telegraph is long gone, but Central Western Time is still used, even though it is not officially recognized and your smartphone does not automatically update to it when you are nearby.

The Card to know YouTube channel said it was ‘very practical’ for locals to have an additional time zone between Western and South Australia.

“Because Eucla is more than 1,000 kilometers east of Perth, in summer when the sun rises at 5am in Perth, the sun would rise earlier than 4.30am in Eucla if they shared the same time zone,” the video maker said. .

‘Central Western Time can normalize that difference, giving the people of the Nullarbor more daylight during their local working hours.’

CWT allows the roadhouses along the Eyre Highway to operate as their own community with their own time zone.

‘Without CWT, the roadhouse and staff at Border Village, just twelve kilometers down the highway from Eucla and over the South Australian border, would be an hour and a half ahead of the rest of the roadhouses on this stretch of the Nullarbor.

“Border time allows these roadhouses to share a time zone regardless of what time their parent states say it is.”

But there are cracks within that uniform time as police have to operate on Western Australian time because their systems are linked to Perth, 1,425km away.

However, that was not always the case.

“I was here 20 years ago when the police department was on Central Western time, and that made things a lot easier,” Sergeant Brice said.

“But obviously now everything is a lot more automated and we operate more digitally, and so we have to work with Perth because all our infrastructure is based on WA time.”

For the experienced police officer, this can lead to confusion in his daily life.

“I tend to be late for my medical appointments because they operate on Central Western Time,” he said.

‘So that confusion is seeping into the community quite a bit.’

Husband and wife Jason, 54, and Zoe Robinson, 47, who run the Border Village Roadhouse, are used to that confusion, although for them it mainly comes from passing tourists who have just discovered Australia’s secret time zone.

The couple had worked in the area for four years and had previously run another roadhouse.

For Mr Robinson, CWT is “incredible, it’s so unique. Every second person who comes into the store wants to know what time it is.

“So that’s why we put the three clocks on the wall, just to help them adjust their clocks and everything else,” he said.

Daylight saving time in the Australian summer muddies the waters further, with South Australians setting their clocks forward an hour – except in Border Village, where daylight saving time is not in effect.

“It gives us an hour and 45 minutes difference instead of just 15 minutes (with the rest of South Africa),” Mr Robinson said.

“So people show up here if, for example, they’ve left their accommodation (elsewhere in South Africa) at 10am, and they think it’s 1pm and they can check in.

“But we have to tell them that it’s only 11:15 and the other guests just checked out, so their room won’t be ready for another few hours.”

He doesn’t mind the inevitable questions and is happy to explain the history of the time zone.

“I’m more than happy to talk about it because it’s quite unique and it sets us apart in a way, I think,” he said.

Mr. Robinson also mentions the telegraph line as the source of CWT.

“The time zone came about as a result of some confusion when the old Eucla telegraph station was operational,” he said.

‘The two operators, the telegraph operators WA and South Australia, were sitting opposite each other and yet one was an hour and a half apart from the other.

“So they made an agreement to split the time difference by capital,” he said.

Whatever the truth behind why Central Western Time came into being, it is a fascinating and enduring piece of Australian history.