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Marble Bar Reserve

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The Marble Bar is a unique 'bar' of Jasper, which spans the Coongan River, five kilometres from town. It was this bar which pioneers mistook for 'marble' that gave rise to the name 'Marble Bar'.

The clear pool below the Bar is a popular swimming spot with a picnic area nearby.

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.

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Awards: It is basically a very modern mining town. Older mining towns (Coober Pedy and Andamooka in SA and Yowah, Qld for example) are characterised by a sense that they have been thrown together in a very haphazard way with poorly constructed streets, no curbing or guttering, and houses built from materials which were available at the time. There is little evidence of this in Marble Bar which has a neatness and tidiness which is decidedly modern and quite attractive. There are, for example, a number of attractive modern houses in the town and even the famous Ironclad Hotel (named by American miners after the Ironclad boats which moved up and down on the Mississippi during the American Civil War) now boasts an air-conditioning system which ensures cool air with cool drinks.