Tjukayirla to Kalgoorlie

October 1:
A beautiful morning and at 5:30 it was fourteen degrees inside the van. Lovely blue skies with a light breeze coming in from the east. After breakfast I went in search of two more caches, one several kms from the roadhouse and one just hundreds of metres away, and was successful in finding both. Filled up with diesel at $2.35 cpl before heading west. Throughout the day, the road surface changed between minor corrugations to being very sandy and then very hard packed like bitumen with stones protruding through the surface. We stopped at a location called White Cross which in fact has a large white cross erected on a small breakaway. It was placed here by Aboriginal Christians in 1991. Also found another cache at this location.

The scenery changed often from savannah type grasses to areas containing gum trees and at times we were surrounded by lovely red sand dunes. We were surprised to see grass trees more commonly known as black boys.

 We passed by another Aboriginal Community called Csomo Newberry before stopping for the evening at the Giles Jindlee Breakaway. It's half a km east of the access road to Jindalee Operational Radar Network Facility run by the Department of Defence. The landscape at this breakaway is quite stunning and includes cliffs and jagged rocks near the lookout. Our campsite was perched up high on the breakaway with commanding views to the plains below, and we both agreed this to be the most spectacular campsite along the Great Central Road. We sat outside having our drinks while our fire died down, and as the sun set we could see the flickering lights of the Csomo Newberry community off in the distance. We ventured inside just after 6:30 as the sun had now long gone and so was our wonderful view.

 

 

 

 

Today's statistics from the navigator include three 4wd's heading west, twelve heading east including a pop top van. She also counted, which by the way is the daily record to date of eighty six wrecked cars and one caravan.

Distance today 257 Kms.

October 2:
Another cool morning with fourteen degrees inside the van at 6:00. Today we have just 50 kms left of our journey across the GCR when we will again be on the bitumen at Laverton. 21 kms east of Laverton we stopped and deposited our fruit scraps in the quarantine bin.

We thoroughly enjoyed this trip with its ever changing landscapes. These included breakaways, amazing mountain ranges, caves, cliffs and wonderful desert oak forests. We were totally surprised at the lack of wildlife and did not see a single kangaroo. A total of  254 wrecked cars were counted and we are sure we missed many more because over the years the GCR has been realigned in so many places.
We stopped for coffee and cake at the Explorers Hall of Fame in Laverton then refuelled at $1.81 cpl before continuing onto Malcolm Dam about 100 kms further west where we would spend the next two nights.

After setting up camp we drove the 13 kms into Lenora to shop and purchase some alcohol before going and viewing the remaining houses at Gwalia.

The 'Sons of Gwalia' reef was discovered in 1896 by prospectors Carlson, White and Glendinning. London based firm of Bewick, Moreing and Coy was seeking investments in the WA Goldfields, and sent a young Americian mining engineer, Herbert Hoover (later to become the 31st President of the United States of America), to Gwalia to report on the prospects of investing here. The rest is now history with Hoover appointed as the mine manager. It's reputed that he was the only twenty three year old in the world to be earning more than $30,000 per year at this time.  
The almost deserted township once housed over one thousand people, in the late 1890's, many of whom were migrants from Europe. They departed when the Sons Of Gwalia mine closed in 1963. This mine is only one of two outside Kalgoorlie Boulder's 'Golden Mile' to produce over two million ounces of gold. There is currently about twenty people living in the township.

 

 

 

Most miners who came here were single men and guesthouses such as Patroni's Guest House were built to accommodate them. 

 

The then Western Australian Government operated a chain of state owned hotels and this hotel was the first and the last to operate. Because there were few places to spend money the State Hotel earned a steady income for the Government. It was sold to a syndicate of local residents in 1960 which ran the hotel until it closed in 1964. It's a magnificent building but unfortunately the timber work on the front of the building needs some maintenance.





We would return tomorrow, and view the remainder of the museum on the hill including Hoover House.
Distance today 169 Kms.

October 3:
We were woken this morning before 5:30 with the wind flapping the awning. We always tie it down with two guy ropes on either end because we have seen the damage to a van that hasn't done this. At about 6:00 the wind intensity had increased enough for us to both go outside and put the awning away. We are still having battery problems where the batteries are unable to hold their charge overnight with the fridge turned on. We contacted an auto electrician in Lenora who will do a load test on the batteries tomorrow. We refueled in town this morning at $163.9 cpl before purchasing some phone cards and heading 4 kms south to Gwalia.The entrance fee of $10 per person entitles you to entry into the main buildings which include the assay office, mine office, machinery shed and more importantly to Hoover House which is also now a Bed & Breakfast. After we had finished our tour we had coffee and cake on the wide veranda overlooking the lawns around the house. Hoover House was designed by Herbert Hoover before he left Gwalia and was built between 1898-1899. Hoover left Gwalia before the house was completed to work in China. However he returned and stayed in the house on numerous occasions after returning from China in 1902.

 

Distance today 38 Kms.

 

October 4:

At 5:15 it was twenty one degrees inside the van this morning. Looks like another hot day. The auto electrician confirmed that two of our batteries did not pass the load test and would need to be replaced. They were unable to supply me with the batteries I required so we will have them replaced in Perth. Our option until then is to power off the fridge once the sun goes down and restart it in the morning once we have enough solar input. We turned south today and our camp tonight is just 60 kms away. We are camping at Niagara Dam. There are three areas to camp at the dam. Two of these have a view of the dam but, are perched on a small hill and quite open to the elements especially the wind.

So we opted to camp below the dam wall amongst the trees with some protection from the constantly strong winds. I found another cache here located within a small cave to the east of the dam wall. We cooked our meal over an open fire this evening after the winds had died down. Temperatures were very hot today with the van interior registering 37.8 degrees at 6:30 pm.

 

Distance today 95 Kms.

Oct 5:
At 6:30 this morning van temperature was fourteen degrees. Another perfect looking day with the forecast temperature not as hot as yesterday. We are heading north today for 11 kms to view Kookynie. It's described as a living ghost town, but to us it looked pretty dead. In the early 1900's the population was 3,500, but now there is just a handful of people living here. In its heyday there were eleven hotels, a brewery and many businesses to support this size population. There were interpretive panels spread around the mostly empty streets describing what buildings were at each site. The Grand Hotel which is well over one hundred years old and looks quite run down, still operates and supplies accommodation, meals, fuel and camping facilities which is just a dirt car park to the side.

These steps led to the now demolished railway platform.

One of the remaining walls to the National Bank.

Ruins of one of the many hotel ruins.

 

I found one of two caches located in the ruins of the town. Temperatures were about ten degrees less than yesterday which made for a nice change.

Distance today 28 Kms.

Oct 6:
Another cool morning with fourteen degrees this morning. I know I'm sounding a little repetitive but for the past twenty eight days the morning skies have been brilliant blue with no cloud, and that is since leaving Quorn in South Australia.
With just 18 kms until we reached the Goldfields Highway we turned south towards Menzies another 42 kms further on. Menzies is just like the other goldfields towns that sprung up quickly in the late 1800's and early 1900's. At one stage there were thousands of people in these towns and in Menzies case over ten thousand people, but by 1910 the population had dwindled to just one thousand. This drop in population was caused by gold production falling and by the onset of World War 1. We stopped only briefly here for a few photos and I was unsuccessful in finding several caches.

 

We aired down our tyres before continuing on towards Lake Ballard another 50 odd kms NW of Menzies. The road was in quite good condition with only mild corrugations so we sat comfortably on 70 kms/h. Antony Gormley created fifty one life sized sculptures of residents of Menzies then cast them in alloy. The sculptures cover an area of seven square kilometres and are embedded into the salt encrusted lake bed.
Our plan was to spend two nights here but with the strong westerlies blowing and the dust billowing every where, we decided that once we take photos this evening and tomorrow morning we are out of here. I found two caches located near the lake and we drove 3 kms to Snake Hill Lookout where I found the third listed for this area which was located about 500 metres from the lookout, and hoping I would not find why it was called Snake Hill.

 

Distance today 120 Kms. 

 

Oct 7:

Fifteen degrees inside the van at 5:30 this morning and cloudless skies. I climbed the hill that sits on the lake this morning to take some shots while Ros prepared the coffee for when I returned.

 

We drank two coffees each outside until the flies drove us inside at 6:30. We left our campsite and continued west for several kms before turning south on the Riverina to Snake Hill Road. We were heading to Coolgardie on part of what is called the Golden Quest Discovery Trail. This part of the trail is a distance of 190 kms which is all dirt. The first 100 kms were quite good with the road surface better than the Menzies to Lake Ballard road, however the road then deteriorated to corrugations and rough stony sections until about 20 kms north of Coolgardie.

 

 

 

On the way we detoured into Rowles Lagoon Nature Reserve only to find the lagoon to be bone dry and of course there was no bird life to be seen.

The only consolation was in finding a cache within the area. I also found caches at two former gold mining towns of Davyhurst and Kunanalling,

before we arrived in Coolgardie where I reinflated our tyres for the run east towards Kalgoorlie.
We had planned to camp at another free camp this side of Kalgoorlie but with school holidays still on there were trail bikes kicking up dust everywhere so we continued onto Kalgoorlie and camped in the free twenty four hour rest area almost in the centre of town.

 After setting up we headed into town for a coffee in the main street before returning to have our evening drinks without flies, before I cooked steaks and stir fry vegetables outside the van on our gas ring with another bottle of shiraz.
Distance today 271 Kms.

Oct 8:
Another one of those beautiful mornings with fourteen degrees inside the van at 6:00. Today was a busy day for both of us. We washed our clothes at the local laundromat, shopped at Woolworth's, filled the car with fuel at $1.58 cpl, I had my hair cut, Ros had some TLC at the local beauty parlour and then a great lunch at the York Hotel followed by some sightseeing including the Super pit.

 

 

Distance today 38 Kms.