Wheat fields and the goldfields of WA, Jan 3rd to jan 14 th
Xmas to Leaving WA
We left Dawesville and the Mulhull’s after our enjoyable Xmas and new year stay with them, their friends and family. The trip back from Yallingup to Dawesville saw a rock hit our windscreen and intermediately it started spreading across the screen, a job, replacement, for when we reach Kalgoorlie. seems there is always something going wrong.
The fires on the Nullarbor closed the Eyre highway on December 20th and they did not open for sometime so we explored the small towns of the wheat field areas of Wa while moving towards Kalgoorlie our exit point for the Nullarbor. The windscreen is booked to be fixed in Kalgoorlie.
Our first stop after leaving Dawesville was Pinjarra, again, staying at the free camp spot in town and catching up with Rob and Gayle for dinner at the pub, as previously done when we weren’t sure if we would see them again, well on this trip anyway, I’m sure we will cross paths again in the future, France, barging on Anja ?
Next we travelled south east to Bridgetown for the night , via Green Bushes state forest having lunch at the local swimming hole on the outskirts of town.
Bridgetown was a nice little town , we caught up with washing, explored the Main Street and walked down by the Blackneath river.
Next , we drove west via Dumbleyung lake, where Don Campbell broke the speed boat record, we had travelled through this town last year but not stayed the night. another RV town and free camp. Below is the lake at its depth of 2 metres , it is very low at the moment, another sign of the drought.
Through Kukerin, where they have the largest yabbie farm in Australia , the owner here giving us a tour of the facilities and we purchased one kg of yabbies and some local Dukka . The yabbies were lovely much nicer than lobster and Marron we thought and on pr with crab but a different much sweeter taste.
We are now in the wheat field areas of WA and driving through this country side is beautiful. Occasionally see a dust whirlybird, this one below quiet a big one. Some fields have harvested rolls lying in the paddocks.
Next stop is lake Grace a large salt lake,
then north to Kulin for another free camp stop in the town.We had been to Kulin before but this time we took advantage of their swimming pool , but the slide wasn’t open. it was very hot here in kulin and we needed the genie on for the air conditioning.
The roads in and out of Kulin was the tin horse highway and most farms have decorated the road with tin horse statues, mostly all different and it was fun seeing them all, below just a few of the better ones.
Our journey continued via Bruce rock, not very impressive,
Then frog rock which is a small wave rock but also not as impressive as the real wave rock
and through to Merredin on the eastern highway. A larger centre with silo art and our free stop just bushland next to the dam on the outskirts of town.
We continued east and took a small detour north to Westonia a small heritage town still mining gold and staying at the RV free stop in town which was next to a little hertitage church.. The pool was free and refreshing and the rest of the afternoon was spent playing pool at the pub, John and I have done this a lot lately , the scores always very close and either of us usually winning as a result of going in off on the black ball.
The museum at Westonia had a mining tunnel that vibrated when gunblasting sounded and it had a nice display of the past history and living.
Check out some of the posters advertising cigarettes, certainly not the messages we see now about smoking.
Below is the gold mining pit still in operation on the outskirts of town
We continued east the next day arriving at the free stop at Coolgardie’s disused railway, a stop we have been to before and then drove around the outskirts of town and visited the museum.
Another game of pool at the pub and then a look at the local museum the following morning ( pic above) which had a history about the gold mining in this area before mining moved to Kalgoorlie. This left the town to become very small but it is the gateway for the highest to go south to Norseman and the Nullarbor.
We then spent three nights in Kalgoorlie, stocked up the pantry and freezer, did the washing and got the windscreen replaced.
Some of the sites we missed last time when we were here were visited.
one was
The local brothel, here it is legal and runs tours where the owner but not the madam talks about the history of Kalgoorlie and its pubs and brothels , how her brothel works and a tour of the rooms used by the girls, the one used nay the domin-maxic worker a real eye opener.
The museum of Kalgoorlie and gold vault was out last tourist visit for WA
and then it is back to the Nullarbor and home in three weeks, the next blog.
