Goldfields and Wildflowers

Saturday the 4th October, after a little last minute shopping, we left the coast and headed west and inland.  Our first stop was Mullewa, a town we had stopped at three years ago.  We found the town rather sad and forlorn.  Most of the businesses were closed and boarded up, and of the few that remained the majority had "For Sale" signs displayed.  The parks and gardens were well kept, but the general air of the town was one of neglect.  So many of these little towns are struggling to survive.

But money has been pumped into many of them.  As well as the well maintained parks, there was a wonderful paved walkway celebrating the history of Monsigner John Hawes.  He was born in England and studied architecture initially before becoming a clergy in the Anglican Church.  After eight years he then decided to become a Catholic priest. Eventually he ended up in Western Australia where he spent the next 26 years as an architect as well as a parish priest, designing wonderful churches in the middle of nowhere and often doing a lot of the building himself.  He was the parish priest at Mullewa for many years, and this church is one of his most celebrated.  All of his designs are famous for the way they blend into the landscape and have made the most of local materials. 

Original open air church and stone altar built by Monsignor Hawes before his church was completed

Wild flowers nearby

The church at Mullewa

After lunch there, we headed to our night's destination of Yalgoo stopping at some of the heritage sites on the way.  Yalgoo has a population of about 100, but probably has the best caravan park I have stayed in all our travels.  The park only has about 15 sites, but the amenities have just been rebuilt, and are all individual bathrooms.  When I walked into one of them I thought I had walked into the bathroom in a four star motel.  Toilet, handbasin, and a huge walk in shower with glass doors, and everything beautifully tiled.  This was the first time I have opted to use a caravan park shower over my own when water wasn't an issue.

The town of Yalgoo is an old goldfield town and we took the lovely historic walk with the leaflet provided by the caravan park.  One of the highlights was the delightful little chapel, another of Monsignor John Hawes designs. 

The chapel at Yalgoo

Welcome sign at the entrance to town taken from the caravan park at sunset

Joker Tunnel

The next morning we were up early to see the Joker Tunnel before we hooked up.  This is about ten kilometres out of town and was dug through a hillside in the early 1900's.  Very interesting and worth the drive

On the road again we continued on to Mount Magnet.  Being a Sunday, nothing was open, so we opted not to stop as we would be returning through, so continued on to the lovely little town of Cue.  A walk around the beautiful old buildings was in order, then a drive out to the ghost town of Dawn Day and the remaining building of the Fingall Mine Company Office.  

Fingall Mine Office

View from the water tank lookout towards the mining area

Metal sculptures celebrating the Canning Stock Route in Cue

The caravan park here has had a recent upgrade to cater for the new influx of visitors with their metal detectors.  The old gaol is in the grounds, and when the caravan park was first opened in the 60's, it was adapted for the ablutions building.  Fortunately it is now recognized for its historic value and new modern bathrooms have replaced it.

Old gaol

The next morning we repeated our walk around the town when everything was open.  Maybe I shouldn't say everything, as in so many of these towns, very little is left to still open. The council offices had a wonderful photo collection and we spent a lot of time in there.   We then walked around to the Community Centre where the lady was so helpful with local information.  After going back to the park for our car, we stopped on our way out at the old Masonic Lodge.  This two story building is thought to be the largest galvanized iron building in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Masonic Lodge

We then drove out to what is left of the town of Big Bell.  The town was established in 1936 and closed down in 1955.  There is very little left, the most substantial being the ruins of what was obviously a very large hotel. The walls of a couple of the churches remain, but nothing else except the concrete blocks on the house sites and random bits of metal.

Big Bell Hotel ruins

From here we took the dirt road short cut to Walga Rock which has the largest gallery of aboriginal art in Western Australia.  In prominent position is one of the most controversial paintings depicting a four masted ship.  Some have claimed this is proof of early ship wrecks such as the Batavia having the survivors being taken in by the aborigines.  More recent supposition is that it was actually painted by a Malay in 1912 and is of the SS Xantho.

Controversial boat painting

Where the artwork is

After our two interesting nights at Cue, we headed back south to Mount Magnet where we spent most of the day.  We unhooked the caravan and took the 37 kilometre self drive.  This firstly took us through the vast mining areas just outside the town which we were unaware of.  There were also a number of historical sites plus the ghost town of Lennonville.  Last stop was a drive through the Granites, a pretty and popular picnic spot just north of the town.  

Mt Magnet mining area

By the time we had completed this it was lunch time, so after eating, we then headed to the information centre and their museum at the visitor centre.  This ended up much more than we were expecting.  As well as a lot of photos and memorabilia of the area, there were also large outside sheds.  One of these was dedicated to the Rabbit Proof Fence as well as an old murder mystery, recently made into a telemovie.  The house built for this has been moved into the shed and forms a large basis of the display.  Another shed holds a large battery stamp that was dismantled and then reassembled here.  By the time we had finished it was getting onto late afternoon, and we continued down the highway stopping at a rest area between there and Paynes Find.

Rabbit Proof Fence display

The next morning we were early at Paynes Find which now appears to consist of just a roadhouse and an old gold mine turned tourist complex.  This didn't open to ten, and as it was now only 8.30 we kept heading south.  This took us into northern part of the wheatbelt area of WA.  

On our travels it is often the least expected that end up great highlights.  The tiny town of Wubin is one of these.  Established around 1912 as a rail siding for the newly established rail line built for transporting the wheat, this had been a thriving town until the closure of the railway line.  Many roadtrains now pass through the town, which explains the two service stations remaining, but very little else.  However, this little town obviously has a huge heart and dedicated volunteers.  Their museum, which is entry by donation only, is one of the best I have come across.  

You start at the information centre, which is the old railway station.  Here there is a substantial display of rocks.  When you have finished here, a volunteer takes you to the first shed.  This was one of the original bulk holding sheds, and a short video explains how the wheat was originally moved in hessian bags weighing 30 kilos before bulk storage was introduced.  There were many interesting displays in the shed including a hands on working model of how the wheat arrives and is moved around.  Even good fun for big kids.  

When we had finished here, another volunteer took us to the next shed which probably has one of the best vintage car collections I've seen.  A local farmer has donated his collection as well as a lot of early equipment.  The thing that struck us was how neat and clean the whole place was, not easy when you are talking machinery.  A real credit to the volunteer workers here who also work in restoring many of the exhibits.

Some of the displays at Wubin - 1950 Triumph

When we finally left this little town, we turned and headed north, stopping a few kilometres out at Wubin Rock.  There is a free camp area here and already a number of vans were set up.  This wasn't our stop for the night, and we parked the van and took the walk to see the view from the top of the rock.  The demarcation of scrubland and wheatbelt was very obvious.

Our stop for the night was at Latham, an even smaller town with a wheat silo.  Even the last shop here had closed.  But again there is obvious government money going into these communities, as there is a brand new community centre with four nicely maintained tennis courts.  The football oval however looked as if its last game was a long time ago as the trees in the middle were by now quite big.  

The centre only opened a few months ago, and have opened their doors freely for travellers to stop and stay over using their lovely facilities including hot showers.  Only one other caravan arrived that night, and appeared to be someone doing some work locally.  

We were now in the wildflower area, but the displays were pretty infrequent.  This year they had been very early, so not much remaining.  We found the occasional spot that still had a lot of colour, but nothing like our trip three years ago at around the same time.

Leaving Latham we were still driving along the railway line.  We stopped at Caron Dam and marvelled at the ingenuity of early settlers. This dam was needed for water for the steam trains.  It was all dug by hand.   As well as the natural run off, they built a huge bitumized area to catch water.  Apparently the dam water is still used today to assist local farmers and the local council.  The water storage is roofed.

part of the catchment area

What used to be a channel

The next town was Perenjori where we walked around the town reading the history at all the metal sculptures there.  The town also had another church by Monsignor Hawes.  This one was one of his later ones, and I didn't like it as much as his earlier works made from local stones.  

Further up the line we stopped at Morawa where we found another of his churches.  This one I felt had more character, and I particularly liked the small priest's room at the rear.  

Morowa church

The quaint priest's house

It was now time to turn west again, and our stop for the night was the wheat town of Three Springs.  There is no caravan park here, and they have set up a wonderful free camping area.  We made sure to purchase a few things at the local supermarket as putting something back into the community is the best way to support these initiatives.  Although quite a big area, there was only one other van that night, proof that the peak season is well and truly over.  

From this point I decided to head back to the coast, and after a short stop for morning tea at the camping area at Lake Indoon, we arrived at the lovely free camping area at Cliff Head.  There were about six to eight other campers here, but I believe it gets very full in peak time.  We chose the open grassed area, but if you venture further north along the track there are many secluded areas.  Late in the afternoon we took quite a long walk along this track.

The next beach around

Our camp spot on the water

There is a private jetty here, and Jim tried fishing but the only decent bite was a huge stingray that he had trouble dislodging.  Another fisherman mentioned there were cave paintings in the area, so the next morning we went exploring for them.  We did find them, but we aren't too sure just how authentic they are.

Cliff Head was a pleasant spot with some nice people camped near us, and we were happy to stop until mid afternoon on the Sunday.  The van was booked for repairs first thing Monday morning, so we decided to stop over night at Fig Tree Crossing again as it is only a short trip to the repairer.  

Extended Geraldton Stay

When we arrived at Geraldton on the Wednesday, we enjoyed the range of shops available.  We had found Kalbarri to be one of the most expensive places we had been to.  I'm not sure why that is as it is far from the most isolated place we had been to.  Fresh produce was the worst, even though there were two small supermarkets and a dedicated fruit and vegetable outlet in the town.  But green beans at $16 - $26, broccoli at $13 and potatoes at $4.40 a kilo had me reaching to the emergency tinned vegetables.

Geraldton was the furthest point we had travelled north on our previous trip to WA nearly three years ago.  As we had seen quite a bit on the previous visit, I originally only booked two nights.  Then I checked the weather forecast and it was looking like being as terrible a weekend as the previous one.  Adding to this the fact that the weekend was a long weekend and the start of the school holidays, we ended up opting to stay over the long weekend until the Monday morning.

As it turned out, the weather forecast wasn't anywhere near as bad as originally forecast,

Apart from Jim trying unsuccessfully to do some fishing, we also headed out to some areas we hadn't been to before.  We went south to the mouth of the Greenough River, although were a bit put out to discover the mouth was closed and there were signs warning about any contact with the water.  The ocean side was a bit rough so also not Jim's idea for fishing.

Osprey nest the the caravan park

Monday morning we finally left Geraldton (or so we thought).   Our idea was to head inland for a little to escape the school holidays with their crowds and inflated prices. We didn't go far the first day,  wanting to stop at Ellendale Pool, about 40 minutes out of Geraldton, a very popular picnic and low cost camping area.  We stopped on the way at Alinta, at a very large wind farm.  There was an arm on display, and it was amazing to see just how big they are.  When you look up at the towers, and see the three arms, your perspective is quite warped.

By the end of the afternoon we discovered just how popular it was at the camping area as it filled up.  We counted 12 vans, a motorhome, a camper trailer, and a tent in the top area where we were and many more in the lower area.  We doubt another camper could have fitted in.  And this wasn't even peak season and we had waited until after the long weekend.

However the next morning didn't go to plan.  Very early on in our travels we had  a mishap with our awning which required an insurance claim of over $6000 as they had to remove all of the side to replace the awing.  The awning arm attaches to the van with a metal plate, and a few weeks ago we had noticed that this seemed to be moving at the bottom.  Then a week or two ago Jim thought that the panels under this did not seem to be attached.  On Monday morning when we put the awing back up, we could see that the plate had now pulled out from the wall.  It wasn't hard to decided that our best option was to head back to Geraldton.

When the repairer looked at it, he felt that the only way to fix it was to again remove all the panels from the side of the van, around $5000 of work.  Contacting the insurance company we were told that the repairer would need to put in a rectification quote, as this was considered ongoing from the original claim.  Understanding that the van was our home, the repairer had the quote in within about an hour, and checking the next morning the insurance booked an assessor to come on the Friday.  Unfortunately I got a phone call early afternoon on Thursday from the assessors to say they did not travel any further north than Perth, so they were going to do the assessment from the photos the repairer had supplied.

But we cannot fault the insurance company.  Friday morning they rang and asked for a few more photos and within an hour we had the approval for the work to proceed.  The fact that we live in the van also made a difference as they understood that there was more urgency for the work to be done.

The repairer originally thought he could do the work by the end of next week, but has now decided to start it Monday week.  That works out OK for us, as we are now pretty much over Geraldton and its frequent strong winds.  Just over a week now gives us time to complete our originals plan and do some discovering of the inland area and its gold mining history.

Lots of History

On Sunday as we sat huddled in the caravan as the wind roared and the rain poured down, we reflected that since leaving Karen's in April, we had been exceptionally lucky with weather.  For that reason we couldn't complain too much about the one terrible day.

We had left Kalbarri on Saturday, knowing from the weather forecast what was to come.  Originally I had planned to camp at Hutt River, but with 30 k's of dirt road I decided it wouldn't be pleasant pulling the van through mud caked roads.  So I changed our plans for somewhere on the sealed road that gave us power at a low cost.

Lynton Station met all the criteria.  The weather was still beautiful when we arrived but we were still grateful for the lovely green grass around us.  There were only three other vans here and it is a lovely peaceful place.  Apart from that I was amazed at the history that is here.  Lynton Station was a convict hiring depot from 1853 to 1856.  Western Australia was never a penal state, but because of a labour shortage, ticket-of-leave prisoners were highly sought after.  The hiring depot was the base for these workers.  There are quite a number of buildings  here.  The prisoners lived mainly in tents for the majority of that time, and ironically when a building was finally completed, the depot was shut soon after.

Some of the remains of the convict hiring depot

The driveway at Lynton Station.  I wonder which way the wind blows.

Amazing little gecko in one of the toilets.  Perhaps this is where aboriginals got the idea for their art. 

Also on the property is Samford House sometimes known as Lynton Homestead, a magnificent building with an equally magnificent view.  The house had been deteriorating as the years went by and back in the 1990's the owners had a dilemma.  The house needed urgent repairs, but no funding was available for privately owned properties.  So they made the decision to hand the building over to the local council so that grants could be obtained to repair it.  This is still an ongoing job, but the verandah has been redone and a new roof put on.   There is even wiring roughed into some of the rooms.  I wasn't overly impressed with the snake on the wall however.  We were able to identify it later as a carpet snake.

Beautiful Samford House

Carpet snake on the wall

Keystone with date

Sanford House is just up the hill from the camping area, and close by are the old stables and a mill.  All of the buildings were full of lots of interesting historical information.

We also drove in to Port Gregory, stopping in amazement at the bright pink of Hutt Lagoon.  The colour is because of an algae growth, which produces beta carotene which is farmed here and exported overseas.  What an unusual sight.

Hutt Lagoon - the pink lake

Waves breaking on the reef at Port Gregory

Of course, Sunday was a right off as we spent the day locked inside with books and the TV.  When we woke up the sky was still clear and we thought we could have done something for the morning, but by the time we finished breakfast the first drops were falling.   It stopped raining for a while just after five, and I laughed when I saw all the caravanners had ventured outside.  Not for long though, as the rain started again soon after.

By Monday morning, the wind had eased and the rain had become an occasional shower, so we packed lunch and made our way to the Principality of Hutt River.  I remember reading about this when it was seceded from Australia.  There is quite a bit of the history of how and why this happened and it was very interesting how Prince Leonard outsmarted the government.  We were privileged to meet Prince Leonard, who gave us a personal tour of the artifacts in one of the buildings.  He is now 89 and a remarkable and highly intelligent individual.

Arriving at the Principality of Hutt River

Meeting his HRH Prince Leonard

The Government Building i.e. the Post Office

There is a lot of artwork.  Some amazing metal sculptures and a huge head carving of Prince Leonard.

Nowadays, the Principality seems to be more of a tourist attraction.  I asked how many tourists they receive, and  he told me currently about 25,000 a year, but it used to be 60,000 when many large tourist coaches came through.  Nevertheless, it was an interesting place to visit.

We left there, and made our way back west to the coast, to call in to some of the spots we weren't able to go with the van.  We found a shack town hidden away on the coast.  There must have been over 30 huts there, some quite impressive structures.  The sea here was quite fierce after yesterday's storm, so our original plan of fishing here was cancelled.  Instead we went back to Port Gregory where we had a rather late lunch and Jim attempted to fish off the jetty there.  Nothing much happening there, so we headed back to Lynton where we took the walk up past Sanford House to the lookout.  The view from here was fantastic, and there is a wonderful memorial to the previous owner here.  After all yesterday's rain, there was an obvious demarcation of dirty water out on the shore line.

Memorial to Ron

View to the sea from the lookout.  Notice the brown demarcation of the dirty water coming from the creek after the heavy rain,

From the lookout looking down to the camping area in the trees.

We left Lynton Station on Tuesday morning to sunny weather again.  We called in for some bread at Northampton, driving through the main street to look at the many historical buildings there.  Then it was on to our destination of Coronation Bay.  This is a very popular camp ground at a low cost.  It was originally set up for kite riders but the caravanners now know all about it, and it is quite difficult to get into as there are only 21 sites.  We arrived at what we thought was early, to discover that some had already arrived before us.  The caretaker told us to drive through and see if there was anything left.  Unfortunately the only place that we could fit was on a terrible slope.  We parked there and walked around in the hope of finding something else, but no luck.  We got the van as level as we could which wasn't easy.  It was a nice enough place but we didn't have a really good feel for it, and as Jim couldn't catch anything, we decided to only stop the one night.  We did some walks along the beach and to the lookouts. Wednesday then it was on to Geraldton and some retail therapy.

Coronation Bay campground.  Our van in the foreground.