Travelling Around

Old Telegraph Station at Eucla

We left Menzies after a few days of sightseeing some very interesting places and headed to Norseman, so we are now on our homeward journey. The roadside was mainly saltbush and small gum trees before our first stop at Kambalda.

Overnight stop at East Norseman

Day 35

After a good night's sleep at East Norseman we headed to Balladonia for fuel. The weather is quite cloudy and looks like there might be some rain coming

Our next stop was Caiguna so we stopped and had lunch in our van, sandwiches and a cup of tea, and then set off again. We stopped at Cocklebiddy for fuel and ice creams. From Cocklebiddy we started to look for an overnight stop and found Moonera Rest Area as there were a few other vans there, Today we travelled about 475 km.

Day 37 - We left Moonera early as we were getting anxious to be home but still have a long way to go.

Moonera overnight stop

90 mile straight

Cocklebiddy Roadhouse

The road from Madura had lots of roadkill, mainly kangaroos and we saw some eagles as they come down onto the road to eat the roadkill. I didn't get any photos as I was not quick enough.

We stopped at Eucla for fuel and then stopped again at Scenic View lookout on the Great Australian Bight.

Eucla

We arrived in Ceduna late in the afternoon and booked into the caravan park and after a shower went to the nearby hotel for dinner.

Next morning we set off again and our first stop was Poochera another small farming town in South Australia. Another stop along the route home was Minnipa and a few other small towns before we arrived at Kimba where we stayed overninght. We had a chat and a drink with some other caravanners and then back to the caravan for tea.

Sculptures in Kimba

These sculptures are a tribute to Edward John Eyre and the indigenous men whose bush skills he was so reliant on.

"Billy" the camel has travelled many kms with us after I adopted him in Mundrabilla as he was looking very lonely on the shelf at the Roadhouse in Mundrabilla and unfortunately he still looks a bit sad, maybe he doesn't like road trips!

We have come to the end of our trip to Western Australia and have thoroughly enjoyed seeing so many interesting and outback towns but it will be good to be home after over a month away.

We spent a couple of days in Westonia, a nice little town, about 300 km east of Perth. It was good to look around the town and enjoy some time without driving. We were able to walk around the town as the caravan park was very central.

Westonia came into existence with the discovery in 1910 of gold in the area, by a sandalwood cutter named Alfred Weston

The town is also unique in that all new buildings in the town’s centre have been constructed in a 1920’s historic style. All existing heritage buildings have been continuously restored and the Westonia Hood-Penn Museum showcases early life in the shire.

Ron in Westonia Museum

Me in the display at the Museum

Wildflowers - Grevillea

Sandford Rocks

We drove on to Coolgardie and topped up on supplies and then continued on to Kalgoorlie.

Coolgardie RSL

Mulla Mulla

Kangaroo Paw

The Karlkurla Bushland Park comprises of 200 hectares of natural regrowth bushland, along with over 2,000 trees and shrubs planted by community volunteers.

We set ourselves up in Kalgoorlie Prospector Caravan Park and walked around the Kaurlkurla Bush Park which was a great way to stretch our legs.

Day 33 - We left Kalgoorlie after looiking around a bit more, but as we have been here before, we didin't spend a lot of time there and headed to another small town called Menzies.

Menzies War Memorial

Menzies is a very small old gold town of about 100 people and is 728 km east-northeast of Perth, the State capital. It is a fantastic town with so much history and so much to see. The main street has many sculptures depicting the history of the gold discovery in the 1890s

We got some information from the Menzies Visitor Centre and drove out to Lake Ballard about 50 km, 20 km on dirt road but it was a fairly good road out to the salt lake. We were surprised to find the salt lake was so huge and we walked out on it as there were many sculptures spread over a large area. We walked around most of them. The sculptures were created by an internationally acclaimed English sculptor and were mostly lifesized and were stunning in the setting of the stark white salt lake.

To create Inside Australia, he travelled to the tiny hamlet of Menzies and persuaded 51 locals (and a few drop-ins) to strip naked. He then digitally scanned their bodies, made life-size moulds and then cast them in stainless-steel alloy.

We enjoyed looking around these sculptures and it was an interesting setting for them on the salt lake. It was a fairly hot day so we didn't stay too long as out on the lake seemed very hot, but was well worth seeing as Lake Ballard is fairly remote and we do like to see everything that we can when we travel long distances.

Niagara was named after the once-booming town of Niagara, the dame was built in 1898 during the gold rush, to provide water for the railway from Klgoorlie to Menzies.

Niagara Dam

After leaving Lake Ballard we drove to Niagara Dam and stopped there for lunch which I had packed and then drove on to Kookynie. Niagara Dam was another surprise as we thought it probably was empty but it was a beautiful feature in a very desolate setting.

Kookynie is a town located in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia. The name of the town is believed to be an Aboriginal word that means "waterhole" or "spring".

Ron feeding Willy the horse

Kookynie was a huge surprise as we were expecting a ghost town with virtually nothing there but we found the Hotel was still operating and Willy the horse was in residence there. Luckily we had an apple left from our lunch so he was more than happy to see us. We had a lovely chat with the owner who told us the history of the hotel and Kookynie.

We looked around the remains of the town and Ron managed to get some photos of rusty things which was good. It really felt like we were in the Wild West here.