Towards the Pilbara

It rained during the night at the Giles Breakaway but thankfully not enough to cause problems for the 53 km dirt drive into Laverton. The roads were wet and a little slippery in places but we managed without mishap. We both fuelled our 4wd's and used the air compressor at the garage to quickly to pump our tyres back up to road pressures.

We were all heading towards Leonora where Narelle and Gordon would turn south towards Kalgoorlie and we would head north towards Leinster. We both changed our cassettes and topped up our drinking and non-potable tanks in Leonora before saying our goodbyes.

We stopped in the BHP run town of Leinster where Ros purchased fruit from the local supermarket. We then headed west and camped at the Peter Denny Lookout. The cliffs at this breakaway reminded us of the Giles Breakaway but on a much smaller scale. A little later after we arrived we were joined by another van for the evening.

Our total distance today was 431 km, with 53 km of dirt. At 6:30 we could see lightning off on the horizon and half an hour later it began to rain and did for most of the night. We could only estimate about 20 mm.

The rain had gone by the morning and we have patchy blue sky and all the plants and trees look rejuvenated after last nights rain.
We left just after 8:00 for the 33 km drive into the small town of Sandstone. What a clean and tidy little town this is. 

We stopped for photos and I inquired about taking the 192 km Sandstone to Meekatharra road that would save us considerable time and distance than going on the bitumen through Mt Magnet. The advice was to stick to the bitumen after last nights rain.

We stopped in Mt Magnet to refuel before continuing north towards Cue. 
The abandoned Masonic building:

Here we changed our cassette and replenished our water supply before stopping in the main street for some photos. It was a very sad sight to see row after row of shops closed with only one pub still operating yet the shire offices, post office and police station were being refurbished.

As we passed by the caravan park almost all the sites were full so I could only assume they were working in the mines that surround the town and they were refurbishing the old miner's cottages.

By this stage, we were now driving into a 40 to 50 km/h headwind so by the time we reached Meekatharra we decided to call it quits and paid $25 to camp in the local caravan park.

We left Meekatharra just on 8:00 am and headed further north. Thankfully the strong headwind we experienced yesterday was now non-existent. We stopped at the Kumarina Roadhouse for lunch before continuing another 140 km to a spot in the scrub just 14 km south of Newman. We were out of sight from the road but unbeknown to us we were directly under the flight path to the airport which we found very amusing.

A short trip into the mining town of Newman where for a gold coin donation we could use the dump point and replenish our potable and non-potable water. We shopped at the local Woolies but then had to wait till midday to purchase alcohol. We stopped in at the Newman Hotel while waiting and both had a corona. Ouch, $18 for two beers.

We also met fellow BT owner Graeme who is also on the Face book page. He works in Newman and reckons he will then be on the road full time in six years.