Hamelin Pool to Geraldton

How different today's drive has been to the past many weeks! The grass at the side of the road has been alive and green, not brown and dead. We have been driving between fenced paddocks, many sown with grain crops. For weeks fences have been rare, and the only agriculture we have seen (mostly a while ago now) has been tropical fruit. Today we saw wheat crops and canola. Well, we also saw feral goats as we were leaving Hamelin Pool. At times we had to check carefully to see whether a particular field of yellow was wildflowers or canola, although we suspect that some of the yellow fields of wildflowers might have been 'pee the beds' as these were common along the side of the road, and also a common weed back home.

The wildflowers have been spectacular. Check in time at our caravan park was 1 pm (another en suite site) so we had time to fill in today, and stopped a number of times to take photos of particular flowers. According to our little free Cook's book (a wonderful guide for travellers anywhere between Perth and Darwin), Western Australia has more varieties of wildflowers than any other place on earth.

Having found our van park, we did a little shopping to keep us going until we stock up in Perth before heading east. We plan to return to Western Australia next year to see the south west, so decided to add Geraldton to next year's trip. Barrie washed Musso, which was decidedly dirty after the trip out to Steep Point.

Geraldton to Dalwallinu

The caravan park at Geraldton was very nice, and quiet. We would have been able to sleep in this morning if the man in the next van, who was returning to Perth after thirteen weeks holiday in Carnarvon (why would anyone want to spend thirteen weeks in Carnarvon?) hadn't been outside at six getting ready to leave, and making an inordinate amount of noise.

The road out of Geraldton was very pretty, across rolling green hills. We drove east to Mullewa, the beginning of 'Wildflower Way'. Mullewa has an annual wildflower show, and we were fortunate that today was the first day. It was interesting to see flowers and be able to say 'We saw some of those yesterday'. In addition to individual jars of flowers they had some lovely massed displays. Mullewa Catholic church is one of many in the region designed by Father John Hawes, Mullewa's first priest. Father Hawes trained as an architect before becoming a priest.

From Mullewa we drove south to Morawa, the heart of the wildflowers along this road. We stopped frequently to photograph flowers that we hadn't seen before. Each time we stopped we found several other new flowers near the one we had stopped to photograph. We were keen to see a wreath flower. There were several on display at the show, but that is not the same as seeing one growing wild. The free guide we picked up in Geraldton said that they grew at Pintharuka Cemetery, a very appropriate place for a wreath flower. Pintharuka  was not on our map, but we found the tiny cemetery. However, there was barely a flower in sight, and certainly no wreath flowers. In Morawa we stopped at the information office and the woman there told us exactly where to find some wreath flowers. The wreath flower grows outwards from a central point, then produces flowers at the edges, so that it looks like a wreath.

We had planned to stay overnight in Morawa but decided to look at all of 'Wildflower Way' today, and shorten the trip to Perth tomorrow. Once past Morawa there were relatively few wildflowers anyway. We are spending the night at Dalwallinu, in a very nice, modern council caravan park. Value for money, it's probably the best place we've stayed in — at $12 for the night. This is a tiny town. From our van we are able to look straight through to farmland.

Dalwallinu to Perth

We drove down to Perth on the Great Northern Highway, which, from Perth, runs north through Mt Magnet and Newman to Port Hedland and Broome to Kununurra. (Barrie thinks that 'Great' is a misnomer' on this stretch.) However, despite its length, there are no major towns between Perth and Mt Magnet, a distance of 570 km. Consequently, we had very little traffic heading our way, although a number of road trains had left Perth early and were heading north. For the first time in many weeks, caravans made up only a small proportion of the road traffic.

We passed through a series of very small country towns. The photo is representative of most of them. Note in particular the silos on the right. This is a wheat growing area, and the tiny towns are at the points where the grain is loaded onto the train. As we headed south we also saw canola and sheep, then vineyards and wineries.

There were far fewer wildflowers today. However, we stopped a couple of times to take photos of flowers we hadn't seen before, and passed others. Today we saw blackboys/grass trees for the first time, also some palm trees. At one stop, the gum trees had prolific crops of gumnuts.

We are back in a big city for the first time in what seems like a very long time.

Perth

Musso went in for another service today. Barrie is very impressed with the professionalism of the people who did the work (Automobile Germany). In addition to a service and thorough check, they cleaned and vacuumed the car and blackened the tyres. Musso is now ready to take us back home.

We were grounded for much of the day. We did some walking, including walking to see the new home of friends Jonathan and Caiyun, and back to collect Musso. We walked across the Swan, with a lovely view in both directions, including downstream towards the CBD. After collecting Musso we picked up a couple of basic necessities — milk and money.

Perth

We slept in a little this morning after a late (by our new standards) night having dinner with Caiyun and Jonathan. Actually, it's difficult to sleep in here. Not because the park wakes up early, the park is quiet, but because we are in a big city and the traffic starts early. Most of the nearby airport noise is drowned out by the commuter traffic noise.

We spent most of the day preparing for the trip east (washing, shopping, etc.) which we start tomorrow. Barrie says he's 'all toured out'. We did take a drive to the Botanical Gardens. A treetop walkway was recently opened and we walked along that, and back through the gardens. The Perth Gardens are planted with Australian native plants, and are not as spectacular as the Melbourne Botanical Gardens.  The location is lovely, high up and overlooking the river and the city. We did find some flowers that we have not seen on the side of the road, and a stand of our favourite trees, the boabs.

Perth to Coolgardie

We decided to cover twice as much distance today as we had planned and spend two nights in Coolgardie. We're getting tired of setting up and packing up frequently. We left the caravan park at 7:40 and drove through the peak hour traffic. Fortunately, most was in the opposite direction. Leaving Perth we drove through rolling hills, sewn with wheat and canola, and with some wildflowers along the edge of the road. Further out, the farms gave way to scrub. We saw two emus in the scrub, and one dead on the side of the road. The road was much busier than we had expected, mainly cars, but also plenty of road trains heading towards Perth.

For much of the latter part of the journey a pipeline ran alongside the road. This 560 km water pipeline was completed in 1903 to bring water to this region.

We saw for the first time an initiative, which we had been told about further north, to reduce the road toll. Twice we saw wrecked cars mounted on the side of the road, labelled with the reason for the accident. We think that the white crosses beside the road, some covered with flowers, are a much more salutary warning. We saw several today.

Coolgardie is the original WA gold mining town and has some beautiful old stone buildings. The most impressive is the old courthouse, built 1898.

Coolgardie (Kalgoolie)

Our ear plugs were useful last night. The caravan park is on the main road, and just across from a service station. Road trains were refuelling then grinding up through all of their gears through most of the night.

We drove into Kalgoolie today. First stop was the 'super pit' in Boulder (a Kalgoorlie suburb), one of the largest open cut gold mining operations in the world — thanks to Alan Bond who bought up individual leases in the 1980s. It's certainly an impressive sight, much larger than can be captured with our camera. Barrie took several photos, with a view to joining all of them together.

Next we walked along the main street of Boulder which has many buildings dating from the time of Federation. Boulder is looking a bit run down these days.

We then visited the Kalgoorlie-Boulder museum, which has an interesting amalgamation of exhibits. There is an exhibit on electricity generation using wind farms, a display of gold jewellery worn by residents over the years, an exhibit relating to the early gold mining days, one on sandalwood, an alternative to gold mining as the gold petered out and several representative buildings from the gold rush era. The exhibits include examples of the ingenuity of the early residents, including a wooden bicycle, ridden the 225 km from Southern Cross to Kalgoorlie by one Mulga Bill. The narrowest hotel in the Southern Hemisphere (no longer operating) has been incorporated into the museum. One room of the hotel has been set up as a 1940s dentist's surgery, another as a private room for a wedding breakfast.

We walked along Hannan Street, named after Patrick Hannan, the man who first found gold in the region. Paddy's statue, which includes a drinking fountain in his water bag, is half way along the business area. It seems that every corner has four pubs, all built around 1900, with others along the street as well. At the far end is the town hall, an impressively ornate building with lovely timber and pressed metal ceilings.

In the past miners suffered great hardship and deprivation searching for gold. It is likely that most of what they found was spent in Kalgoorlie's hotels and brothels. Our final sightseeing in Kalgoorlie was to drive down Hay Street, known in the past for its brothels. The bright red building was hard to miss. Business must be harder to come by these days. The sheet of events we had collected from the Tourist Information Office advised that tours through a working bordello (the mind boggles) at a cost of $25 pp.

Back in Coolgardie we looked again at some of the local points of interest. The Lindsay Pit, no longer in operation, is a smaller version of Kalgoorlie's super pit. A 'prison tree' near the former warden's home has broken in two. This hollow tree used to house prisoners.

Coolgardie to Cocklebiddy

Despite driving through some very remote country (most 'towns' consist of a service station with additional amenities such as internet access and accommodation), there was plenty of traffic, including lots of road trains, and today's journey was far from uneventful. The road south from Coolgardie was undulating and lined with scrub. Close to Norseman it crosses through salt lakes, which had a little water after the recent rains. After we turned east at Norseman the scrub gradually gave way to flat grassy plains. Although the roadside looks fairly barren, there were occasional wildflowers, of several varieties, most of the way. The longest straight stretch of road in Australia, one of the longest in the world, runs between Balladonia and Caiguna. Today we drove further than we have on any other day, 616 km. Despite this, the only town we passed through was Norseman. We detoured down Roberts Street to look at the town centre, and noted number 52.

Some of the wildlife we saw today was a little too close. Just south of Coolgardie an emu decided to cross the road. It had plenty of time to get across our half of the road in front of us, but looked like it would be hit by the approaching road train just before we reached it. Fortunately, the emu realised the danger and picked up speed. Further along we saw two more emus in the bush. We had a similar incident with kangaroos. One hopped across the road well ahead of us. As Barrie (who was driving) watched it hop away, Joy was watching first one, then a second, then a third hop onto the road to follow it, dangerously close by this time. Fortunately, there were only the three. We had been warned by a sign just out of Norseman, illustrated with a camel, an emu and a kangaroo, that we should watch for wildlife for the next 1150 km.

Shortly after leaving Coolgardie we heard one road train driver warn another that a truck had overturned near Balladonia, some 300 km away, and they were considering closing the road. We continued to hear about this accident for the next 300 km. When we reached it, the road was reduced to one lane, with two men stopping traffic. The apparent driver was reclining on a makeshift bed in front of a fire at the front of the remains of his truck. The prime mover was upside down, as was the first trailer, it's load scattered around. The second trailer, with its load of new cars, was still upright. It looked like the driver might have started to run off the road, then overcorrected and overturned. It must have been at least seven hours since the accident. Whatever assistance they were waiting for to do the clean up was still to arrive.

Further along the road a road train driver coming our way mentioned that a caravan had been wrecked about half way along the straight stretch. Before reaching that, we were amazed to see a horse drawn vehicle pull out from the left of the road in front of us and make its way slowly across to the right. As far as we could tell, we were hundreds of kilometres from any habitation. As we passed this unusual conveyance, we realised that it had pulled away from the wrecked caravan. As the truck driver said, about all that was left of the caravan was the roof. We surmise that the driver of the horse drawn carriage was looking for anything that might still be useful among the wreck.

We decided to drive beyond our planned destination of Caiguna. As we left Caiguna we adjusted our watches by 45 minutes to Western Central Time (Western Central Time??). The description of the Cocklebiddy caravan park described the facilities as 'limited'. They lie somewhere between Sandfire Roadhouse and Nanutarra. We don't have running water in the van, and the amenities are the same as are used by the roadhouse patrons and half way along the front of the roadhouse. However, what's there is definitely a step up from Nanutarra (the showers have doors!).

We've hit a new high price for diesel — 130 c/l at Balladonia and Cocklebiddy. The previous high of 125 was at Turkey Creek.

Cocklebiddy to Yalata

Once more we travelled beyond our planned destination. Today we decided to stop at Yalata because our information was that it was the place closest to the whale viewing. We discovered when we arrived that whale viewing is now 80 km further back the road, and our planned stop would have been much closer. 

It was raining when we started driving this morning, and continued to rain lightly for several hours. This is the first time we have driven in rain. It has remained cloudy all day, and we are noticing the cold more now. We decided to count the vehicles that passed by us in either direction today (Sunday). We counted: 116 large transports and road trains, 33 caravans, 13 campers (tents on top or trailers), 5 campervans, 65 private cars or 4WDs, 10 commercial vehicles (buses, oversize lead vehicles, etc.), 2 motorcycles and 1 person walking! The walker was apparently raising money for some cause, but we passed too quickly to see what. He was pushing a covered 'barrow' which apparently held everything he needed, and he appeared to have no backup support.

From Cocklebiddy to the SA border we travelled first along the top of the Hampton Tableland, then beside it, and back up on top at Eucla. There is a clear escarpment for hundreds of kilometres. At Eucla we detoured slightly to overlook the Great Australian Bight with its sand dunes and the road along which we had just driven. We then crossed into South Australia, one state nearer home. In the latter part of the day we drove along the edge of the Nullarbor, the 'treeless plain', although the sign indicating the western extremity of the Nullarbor was at the eastern end according to our road atlas.

The camel/emu/kangaroo warning sign changed today to camel/wombat/kangaroo, although we didn't see any animals at all. Another interesting sign which occurred several times today was the notification that the road ahead of us was also an RFDS emergency airstrip.

We have seen warnings that fruit and vegetables will be quarantined at Ceduna. For cars entering WA there is a quarantine station at the border. It seems that each state is concerned about fruit fly and each state is confiscating fresh produce that has come from the other state. We didn't realise that our produce would be taken from us at Ceduna. We had some vegetables, particularly avocado, that we couldn't eat up so Joy has been 'cooking' this evening and we will be eating guacamole for as long as it will last. .

Yalata to Ceduna

Last night we shared the caravan park with one other travelling van and two permanent vans (why would anyone stay long term in Yalata?) The roadhouse and associated facilities are run by the local aboriginal community. However, as in almost every other aboriginal run facility that we have seen, both of the men behind the counter were white. We are disappointed when we see this. Although the facilities were typical of roadhouses, at only $10 for the night it was good value, particularly as this one surprised us with both CDMA mobile coverage and excellent television reception.

This morning we left the van at Yalata and headed back along the road to the whale watching point, which is almost exactly at the top of the Great Australian Bight. We discovered that the eastern end of the Nullarbor Plain is only about twenty kilometres along the road from the western end. In getting the spelling of Nullarbor correct, we have also realised that the word is not aboriginal.

Someone must have told the whales to move to the new viewing point. When we arrived there were about a dozen whales in the water close to shore. We watched them for almost an hour. Unfortunately, it was cloudy. In the sunshine the views must be spectacular. To the west are cliffs, to the right, at the top of the Bight, are sand dunes. Fortunately, it was not windy. There was no doubt when we were standing there that the Southern Ocean is to the south.

After collecting our van we drove on to Ceduna. We could have travelled further, but preferred the luxury of a town and an en suite to another roadhouse. After the busy road yesterday, we were surprised at how quiet it was today. We probably saw no more than 20 road trains all day.

We like to try to local food specialities. Ceduna has oyster farms! Dinner this evening consisted of a dozen oysters each, after which it was difficult to fit in any of the guacamole and crudités. The oysters were very fresh (we watched them being opened) and beautifully plump, the best oysters we have ever tasted.

Ceduna to Gladstone

The road east from Ceduna was initially lined with wheat farms and the small towns all had big wheat silos. One of the advantages of towns is that they provide public facilities. The little township of Minnipa has been particularly innovative in its provision of public toilets, easily seen from the road, and with labels 'hens' and 'roosters' on the doors. Further east we drove through scrub, then past Iron Knob and across another 'treeless plain'. Barrie's comment as we passed Iron Knob was that it was easy to see that men with machines had been there. The road was lined with shrubs, many of them wattles, now coming into blossom. Near Port Augusta the Flinders Ranges appeared. From a distance they look magnificent, but cannot be captured with our camera. South of Port Augusta we again drove past wheat crops, and some canola, with the Flinders Ranges in the distance.

Once again, we have extended our planned day and driven further so we are closer to home. Tonight we are staying in Gladstone, a small town supporting a farming community. After arriving, we took a short walk around the town. In 1881 the population of the town was 729. Today the streets are still lined with old stone residences well maintained and very attractive.

Booyoolee Station, the oldest station in the area, was settled in 1846. This is the original home of Booyoolee Beef, later known as 'bully beef'.

The caravan park here is run by the council. It has the best amenities block we have seen anywhere. The showers are clean, new and the cubicles are large enough for a family to shower together. We seem to be the only overnight travellers, although there are four or five longer term vans. We have been very impressed by the standard, and the price, of council run caravan parks.

Gladstone to Ouyen

We're nearly home. We decided to change the proposed route and drive home via Mildura rather than along the main road between Adelaide and Melbourne. It was a very pretty drive through green hills from Gladstone down to Burra. Further on we encountered bush, and another almost treeless plain. We had to give up our fruit again near Renmark. A bit further on we crossed into Victoria. When we realised that we had lost another half hour for the day we decided to stop for the night in Ouyen. We were in bed really early, but then spent time talking to our retirees dinner group (sorry we didn't make it in time), and to Adam who called from Northamptonshire, England.

Ouyen to Home

We hadn't realised last night just how close to our caravan the road (and road transports) and the railway line were! There were also the barking dogs. Ouyen was definitely not the quietest caravan park we've been in!

Joy grew up in the Mallee, so the road signs along the way this morning had a familiar ring. Also familiar were the flat hectares of young wheat. Eleven kilometres down the road from Ouyen we left the Calder Highway and headed towards Ballarat, on extremely quiet and very pretty roads. The wheat fields continued through the Mallee and into the Wimmera. As the flat plains were replaced by the rolling hills of the Pyrenees the wheat diminished and wineries and bush appeared. Again, it was a very pretty drive.

Ballarat was almost home. After many visits over the years to Sovereign Hill it was difficult to get enthusiastic about the historic aspects of various gold mining towns as we travelled around the country.

Today was a beautiful, sunny day, just like the day we left, three months ago. Unlike the day we left, today was very windy. We arrived home in the middle of the afternoon and have spent the time since unpacking and settling back into our house.

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