Marble Bar
Marble Bar is the hottest town in Australia
There are a small number of towns in Australia whose names have such a potency and such a power of association that they automatically conjure up images. The name ‘Marble Bar’ is synonymous with mining, isolation and, most importantly, heat. It is known as ‘the hottest town in Australia’ a fact which is still recorded by the Guinness Book of Records. For 161 consecutive days to 20 April 1924 the temperature in the town never dropped below 100°F (37.8°C). This record still stands after nearly seventy years. During all the time that records have been kept the temperature at the town has never dropped below 0°C.
Located 1476 km north of Perth on the Great Northern Highway, 192 km south-east of Port Hedland and 173 metres above sea level, Marble Bar does not fit the preconceptions most visitors have of it. If you imagined a reckless mining town in a barren wasteland with dirt streets and exhausted people standing outside a rather forlorn corrugated iron pub, then Marble Bar is nothing like that.