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.