Northern Goldfields of WA.

Flying Doctor uses the Highway!

From Mt. Magnet we headed east towards the Northern Goldfields of WA. This region has so much history, and we know none of it! There are dozens and dozens of small towns, ghost towns, and towns that have simply been lost, as a result of gold rushes that raged through this region from the mid 1890's. Today, large scale gold mining still goes on, meaning that gold mining has operated continuously in this region for 120 years! The volumes of gold removed from the region astounded us. Tens of millions of ounces, and still counting!

Sandstone here we come.

Alice Atkinson Caravan Park.

The road we are travelling along, is lined with purple and pink bushes. It is such a delight to drive though, softening the otherwise arid landscape. We pass mountains of earth that have been mined and discarded. There are roads heading off in all directions, some to current mines and others have the gates closed. Just 150 kms along the road, we reach our stop for the night, Sandstone. What a lovely little town with some lovely old buildings and loads of flowers to brighten it all up. Our caravan park is the Alice Atkinson Caravan Park, which has a

Visitor Centre Sandstone.

Inside Sandstone PO.

beautiful grassy front area around the camp kitchen, and plenty of large sites. We chose a site, and savour neighbours from the last couple of nights in Mt. Magnet. We seem to be stalking each other, and share a good old laugh about it. Sandstone has no current mining, so it is quiet, and the Shire has put a lot of effort into tourism to help the handful of locals who call Sandstone home. We wandered down town to check out the scene. The Post Office was about to close. It is only open from 8.00am to 1.00pm! The lady let us in to her shop which is

Old corrugated iron house.

Lots of memories from the past.

a Post Office, Cafe, Gift Shop and Art Gallery complete with working artist! We had a lovely chat to the lady who was also the artist, and very protective of her "Bottle Top" art. No Photographs please!! Across the road was the Visitor Centre and small Museum, which gave us an insight into the history of the region through some wonderful old photographs. We collected a map of the heritage trail, a 37 kilometre drive around town and the surrounding districts, that takes in the natural and mining history. First stop was the Old Brewery, built

Old Brewery site.

London Bridge.

into a cave in the side of a hill! No refrigeration in those days, so they used the coolness of the rock to keep the beer cold! From there it was on to London Bridge, the famous natural bridge that has been a favourite picnic spot since the first prospectors arrived. The remaining sites we visited were abandoned mines and homes, and even an old well built by the Government to support the miners and their animals.

National Hotel in Sandstone.

The Travelling Artist's Caravan!

That night, we decided to have dinner at the pub. The lady at the caravan park said the meals were good. The pub is also the general store, with the front room acting as the shop, which had a surprisingly good range of goods. We bought some fruit and veggies at the pub! We grabbed a couple of drinks, and plonked ourselves  down on the end of a long table. At the other end was an old Black Fella in a big black hat, and another guy all spotted in paint! Turns out the paint splattered guy is a travelling artist, in town to do some new murals in the pub, which is being

Old garage at Gwalia.

renovated. Another guy,

One of the Pub's residents.

who looked like a tin of paint had landed on him, also joined us. He was the publican! Helping with the painting! The old Black Fella was Clarrie, a local identity who paints, tells yarns and writes books. He spoke with a slow drawl in a very deep voice. He was so slow, that many times we thought he hadn't heard our question, and then an answer would come. He told us how he loved living in the bush, and all about the best bush tucker, which part of the goanna or kangaroo was best. He told us that goanna tail tastes like crayfish, a claim I'm unlikely to test any day soon! He described working up the Canning Stock Route in the '50's, and about all the changes he had seen. It was just fascinating. To top it off, we had a lovely meal of Chicken Parma and Chicken Hollandaise, prepared by the new chef, who thankfully was paint free!

Main Street Leonora.

Neighbours XXXX Commercial set.

Next morning we were back on the road headed for Leinster. We spent a whole 8 minutes in Leinster! It is a BHP gold mining town, not intended for tourists. So we continued on our way, now heading for Leonora, where we planned to stay a couple of nights. All of these old gold mining towns are the same, but Leonora promises some unique history. We found the caravan park, and the stalkers from Mt. Magnet and Sandstone! It is a dumpy caravan park full of miners who have built some unique humpies around their old caravan parks. In fact I am convinced that our

The dining room at Hoover House.

Hoover House.

neighbour's site was the set from the XXXX Beer Commercial! As we were setting up, a friendly young fella, badly in need of a dentist, wandered over and inquired how long we were staying. He told us if we were around the next day, we were invited to the "pig on the spit" BBQ he was putting on for his 40 miner mates! I told you it was the XXXX commercial!! The blood was draining from Carolyn's face, as I thanked him for the offer! We ran around like crazy that afternoon, to see all the sights Leonora had to offer, and were up bright and early the next

Original wooden Head at Gwalia Mine.

The Pit beside Hoover House.

morning and back on the road. Our "stalker" friends, who luckily were on the other side of the caravan park, later told us that the party started about 10.00am and was still in full swing at 4.00am the next morning, when a young lady a few caravans down the row, snapped, and gave them a barrage of language and threats, that brought the party to an end! Anyway, back to that unique history I eluded to. About 4 kilometres away, is the Ghost Town of Gwalia. There had been a gold mine here since the 1890's. The Sons of Gwalia Mine,

The old shops at Gwalia.

The old Gwalia Hotel.

closed on 21st December 1963, and everyone left town within days! The old mine had a very famous manager from 1898 until 1913, a Yank by the name of Herbert Hoover, who later went on to become the 31st President of the USA! He built a grand home, which stands proudly today, operating as a B&B, thanks to a young lady who managed to preserve the old house and much of the equipment and old photos and records from the mine. She established an excellent museum which is a must see. In the 1980's, spurred on by high gold prices and new technology, the mine site was reopened, this time as open cut, so now Hoover House and museum, sits on the edge of a huge pit! We had a lovely afternoon exploring the museum. That my friends, was the highlight of Leonora!

Menzies Caravan Park.

The restored Menzies Town Hall.

Our final stop in the Northern Goldfields was at Menzies. This little town no longer has an active mine, and has undergone a tourist transformation with restored buildings, a new caravan park, and some wonderful steel sculptures depicting life in years gone by. We checked in at the caravan park, which is clean and open, not a tree in sight! There is even a new coffee shop in town! Yay! And the coffee isn't bad, but then we have been coffee shop deprived for some time! Thank God for our coffee machine! The tourist information tells us there are a couple

First Motor bike in town.

Some things never change!

of things to do around Menzies, apart from walk the Heritage Trail in town, which is excellent, with all the rusty steel sculptures, telling of life in the old, bustling town of around 10,000 people. At the coffee shop we bumped into our stalker friends again! They were just passing through, having stayed in a free camp at nearby Niagara Dam, a dam built back in the early 1900's, to provide water for the new railway line from Kalgoorlie to Leonora. We

A Ghostly welcome.

It was a mining town!

headed out to see the dam, which is now a popular free camp and picnic spot. Very nice spot, spread around the dam. We drove a little further on to the town of Kookynie, dubbed the Living Ghost Town. If it isn't dead, it hasn't got long to go! We called into the pub on a Saturday afternoon when the TV was showing the AFL match between Fremantle and the Sydney Swans. The lady publican asked us where we were from, and when we said Sydney, all the heads in the

Sign on the pub wall.

Behind the bar at Kookynie Pub.

bar turned towards us!! All good fun, as we wished them all better luck next season! The old pub still has draught beer on tap, not cans like most have these days, so we had a drink and chatted with the publican, who told us she and her husband had been at Kookynie for 27 years. I joked that she should have taken a plea bargain! She agreed it had been time to move on for some time! The pub is for sale for $400,000, which she said was a bargain. Every blokes dream! Carolyn said "don't even think about it!", so we downed our beer and left the locals

What can I say!!

One of 51 sculptures.

to come to terms with Freo's defeat. We drove around the town,which is just ruins with the odd run down home still being inhabited. Next day we drove out to Lake Ballard, to see the much applauded "Inside Australia" sculpture collection, commissioned by the world renowned British Sculptor, Antony Gormley, who we have never heard of! Reading the brochure, describes how the 51 sculptures are based on photographs of local personalities, and are spread across 10 square kilometres of a salt lake. Wow, sounds amazing! So off we went,

Times long ago.

Niagara Dam.

53 kilometres out of town along a good gravel road to Lake Ballard. We were seriously underwhelmed!! I think the residents of Menzies should start a class action, unless of course they are the world's first 51tuplets! The sculptures are all the same, just some a bigger than others! They are a bunch of naked stick figures. The men have erections and the women have garden implements for boobs! Now I know I'm not an art critic, but come on! The other punters were shaking their heads as well. The general consensus was that you had to come and have a look, but wouldn't be rushing back! For me, the highlight was the chicken sandwich we had for lunch. The March Flies, big enough to put saddles on, and with a bite to match, weren't adding to the ambiance either! Thank God it was free! We headed back to town, and called in at the Pioneer Cemetery. Maybe this is where Antony got his inspiration!
That afternoon, a cold change came through and dropped the temperature 15 degrees. The winds just got stronger and stronger, and were so strong that we thought the caravan might be moved it was shaking so much. We had to bring in the slide out because the awning on it was flapping so violently we feared it may tear. It was without doubt the roughest night we've ever had. We headed off for Kalgoorlie, with a fierce cross wind buffeting us all the way. It was a slow, slow trip!!