FW: time in southeastern Western Australia

[Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E]]

I'm forwarding this message from Alex Livingston who, after sending it,
has subscribed to the time zone mailing list.

				--ado 

-----Original Message-----
From: LIVINGSTON Alex [mailto:lial at mac.com] 
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2006 11:57 PM
To: tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
Subject: time in southeastern Western Australia

Apologies if this has already been covered. I checked the latest tzdata
file and there seems to be no mention of it.

I have been meaning to write this for nearly four years; it was just on
four years ago that I drove along the Eyre Highway, which passes through
eastern Western Australia close to the southern coast of the continent.

I paid particular attention to the time kept there. There can be no
dispute that UTC+08:45 was considered "the time" from the border village
just inside the border with South Australia to as far west as just east
of Caiguna. There can also be no dispute that Eucla is the largest
population centre in this zone, having a population of "40 or 50" (from
memory what the proprietor of the roadhouse said when I asked him); it
even has named side streets off the highway, and a very modern
meteorological observatory and office. The other settlements,
Cocklebiddy, Madura, Mundrabilla, and the border village, have much
smaller permanent populations (around a dozen at most). So if a new zone
were to be added to the tz database it should be called
"Australia/Eucla".

To back up my assertions I was going to refer to photographs I took of
the three clocks at the border crossing (showing, Perth, local, and
Adelaide time, respectively) and of the clearly "official" sign
(galvanised-steel posts and frame, well-cut rectangular sheet-metal
plate with rounded corners, stencilled lettering, and reflective paint)
proclaiming "Central Western Time" that is seen just after leaving
Caiguna heading east, but I have not published them yet and I do not
have the time to check them now. (I think the sign also says, in smaller
lettering, "Advance Clocks 45 Minutes".) This zone is also shown on the
excellent map at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Timezones_optimized.png (obviously
based on the CIA time-zone map). "Central Western Time" is mentioned in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone, where an estimated population
for this region of 200 (according with what I would have guessed) is
also given. (Unfortunately the phrase "Western Central Standard Time" 
is used in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Australia to refer to
the same thing.)

Now that Western Australia is observing daylight saving, the question
arose whether this part of the state would follow suit. I just called
the border village [+61 (0)8 9039-3474; from online white pages] and
confirmed that indeed they have, meaning that they are now observing 
UTC+09:45.

There is one more curiosity to report about this isolated part of the
world. The old Eyre telegraph station, just behind the coastal sand
dunes southeast of Cocklebiddy, is now run as a bird observatory as well
as a weather station and guest house. Its permanent population is
2 (a caretaker couple). I stayed there for a night on my way through and
noticed that they kept a time different both from Perth and "the
highway" (phrase used by caretaker; see below); they have a clock in
their kitchen with a Dymo label on it stating "Eyre Std. Time" (I took a
picture). It was UT+09:00, meaning a whole hour ahead of Perth, making
their checking and reporting of weather data (which the Perth weather
bureau expects to be done according to Perth time) simpler. I have just
called them [+61 (0)8 9039-3450, also from online white pages], and they
too have advanced their clocks with the rest of the state, putting them
on UTC+10:00 and maintaining their one-hour difference from Perth.

As far as I'm concerned this warrants another time zone, Australia/Eyre,
despite the tiny permanent population! I seem to remember that what
matters to this list is what time people actually keep, not statutory
status.

I hope the hour or two I've spent preparing and writing this turns out
to be of some value.