Out West Day 30, 31, 32

 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

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.

Some rusty machinery

Kookynie Hotel

Menu at the Kykoonie Hotel

We left Kookynie after a great time looking around this old town and headed back to Menzies for the night.