Ok not a lot to report today. We left Mt Magnet with plans to carry on to Meekatharra, but finished up at Cue with Elaine resting her back!

That meant that I took a good long walk around the town. We passed through here last year and I walked the Main Street, but there was lots more to see. Firstly I walked down the main street to the visitor centre which was in a side street. Before going in I photographed the Masonic hall which is very old built of timber and corrugated iron. Then spoke to the lady and found out that the town is working towards RV friendly status, somewhere down the track. Followed by a longer walk around  this town which is putting a lot of effort into attracting tourists. There is lots to see and there are a couple of parks, lots of sheet metal tableaux, a caravan park and eventually there will be an RV park. I stopped at the shire office and had a look at their photographic collection, I don't know how many, maybe a thousand or more, certainly censory  overload and well worth the time. There was also a model of the Big Bell mine but it needed an explanatory diagram so that one could understand what it was all about, and it was a big operation and a very detailed model.

Then with the shires permission we camped for the night.

Ok today was a bit better, in fact a lot better, but night brings the pain back.

Anyway we actually left the rest area at 7.30am which was a massive shock to the system. We had morning tea at 10.10am which is our usual departure time! Anyway it was a good run into Mt Magnet which is a nice little town that we visited last year and had a good look round. So this year it is just somewhere to stop, which we had to do as we needed to make some phone calls.  So we have booked into the caravan park and will head off again early tomorrow.

Sunday May 29

Lots of pain today! She is not having a good run.

Not much to report today. My morning walk revealed a nicely set up town as is usual with the mining companies. It is normal for them to provide the infrastructure around mines in remote places, such as Paraburdoo, Tom Price, etc and this is another good example. There are well laid out villages for single staff, shops, sporting facilities (footy oval, tennis courts, basketball courts), school, day car centre, bmx track, medical centre and probably lots more that I didn't see.  There is also a number of residences surrounding all this, obviously part of the deal because they are pretty much identical. Having said this the town is supposedly in decline because the nickel mine was closed, but there seemed to be a reasonable number of people around so maybe something is happening.

Anyway after that we left town stopping 4 times before reaching our camp. We are camped at the Peter Denny lookout which had a great view, along with 2 other campers.

Elaine had a slightly better day today but she really suffers at night.

Yesterday was a very interesting day, as I have already said we were camped at the free RV camp area outside the Gwalia museum. The Gwalia mine has a long history starting in the last decades of the 19th century. A lot is made of the fact that Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the USA, was an early mine manager and was instrumental in some very innovative activities that helped make the mine very profitable. It has had 3 incarnations, the first being the usual underground mining surviving a major fire and subsequent rebuild in 1921-1923. Then becoming unprofitable and closing 1963, reopening under new managements in the 80s as an open cut mine. There is now an enormous pit, quite beyond imagination that is many hundreds of metres deep and many hundreds of metres diameter. Now it once again has been under new management for some years and is once again an underground mine. This mine is some 1600 metres underground and huge ore trucks transport the ore from that depth underground to the surface! Again quite beyond imagination. It really needs to be seen to be appreciated.

I took a morning walk around the old ghost town. To start one has to realise that the buildings are slapped together tin shanties, some with hessian internal walls, quite an eye opener to the miners living conditions. There is Patronis Guest House which has hessian walls dividing the tiny rooms that people, mainly single men, lived in. In a modern house the laundry is bigger than these rooms! Then there is Mazzas Store which literally sold everything and anything. From there to houses that are unbelievably primitive in size and construction, tin outer walls and roof, hessian internals (mainly) and it is hard to imagine families living in these houses. There were cots and all sorts of old furniture still there as evidence that complete families lived in them. Then I visited the museum, another eye opener from the original headframe (which lowers men and materials into the mine and lifts them out again) to the gigantic steam engine that powers the headframe and loads of interested artefacts. I could go on for hours but suffice it to say that it was an great experience.

Today we packed up and drove 130km north to Leinster where we are in the caravan park and have caught up on our laundry. We also have power and are able to watch tv, at least madam is watching.

Naughty boy no blog last night! My excuse is that Elaine had a bad day and I was cooking etc.

Just a couple more comments on Niagara Dam, it is a great spot both historical and picturesque. The was built round the end of the 19th century to supply water for the steam trains that connected the northern goldfields to Kalgoorlie. The quoted price was £42000 but the final price was £62000 (it may have been dollars, my memory is not 100%) due to a misjudgement by the government department of the amount blasting and rock removal to be done! That does sound like a familiar story doesn't it?  Anyway by the time it was finished they had discovered a nearby artesian well which did the same job, so the dam became a white elephant. Now it is a popular camping spot, particularly for those who go prospecting.

Yesterday was spent with Elaine resting and me exploring the Gwalia ghost town, I will cover that in detail later when I have time to put my thoughts together.

Elaine is still not good, one has to wonder about the efficacy of the proceedure that she had a month ago.

Today dawned bright but not very sunny, however we were in a lovely spot overlooking both the dam and the bush. I made a late start but decided to repeat yesterday's walk. This is a fascinating walk, not spectacular like some that I have done but, to repeat myself fascinating. Coming down from the lookout one can look back, and for that matter all around the creek bed and surrounding breakaways and see rocks of all sizes and shapes and, importantly, colours. There are reds, browns of course, yellow, glaring white quartz, subtly tinted quartz some on the ground and some cascading down the sides of the breakaways. Today I wandered around more than yesterday and would love to see this area in near flood conditions as there are gullys every which way.

When I got to the area below the dam wall I had call, on our hand held radios, from Elaine and met her on the dam wall. We were parked close to the wall so she did not have to walk far.

Later we decided to pack up and head for the Gwalia ghost town. This is just south of Leonora and is supposedly worth the stop, I will complete that judgement tomorrow. They have a free RV parking area which overlooks the old town and the open pit. The pit is enormous and is, I understand the second reincarnation of this extremely profitable mine which was first mined at the end of the 19th century. The view in every direction is spectacular.

Elaine still in pain but still functioning, she walked a little today but was obviously finding it difficult.

Yesterday we left Menzies heading for Gwalia but remembered Niagara Dam and stayed there for the night. We camped in the lower camp which is below the dam. It was a good spot and we enjoyed it even though it rained lots last night. This morning I walked around the dam then took another walk covering the other side of the area. It encompassed a couple of good lookouts, my favourite things, and extensive quartz fields. Quartz is where they find gold, I didn't find any of that but I did find some very pretty rocks. Quartz has some fantastic qualities when it has impurities that show nice colours based on what the impurities are.

When I got back we had breakfast then Elaine walked up to the dam wall with me, it looked great up there, so we shifted the van to the upper camp area. We now have a site with great water views over the dam on one side and forest on the other side. There are quite a few people up here and I went to a sun downer with some of them, Elaine stayed in the van nursing her back.

Tuesday May 24

Offline again !

Elaine still in pain but functional. We have driven north for warmer weather and are sitting here, 200 km north of Kalgoorlie, with grey skies, cold winds and occasional rain!

The day dawned sunny and warm in Menzies but with a noticeable cool wind. So I set off on my walk around this interesting town. It is a very small town that once, during its golden days, had thousands of inhabitants. The current occupants have created a lot of statue tableaux made from flat sheet metal cut out and painted. Each one has its story board telling the story of the local aborigines and their interaction with the booming town. There are also story boards telling, in part, the town's history. It is very interesting and this time I found more than last year.

Then back to the van, breakfast and after some deliberation we decided to move on. The plan was to visit the Gwalia Ghost Town, but on the way the remembered Niagara Dam where we stayed and enjoyed last year. So here we are at Niagara Dam. With conditions as explained above!!!

One other thing, I stopped to talk to a fellow camper. He turned out to be vitriolic in his condemnation of WA. Further he wouldn't listen when I tried to tell him similar stories about his home state of Queensland without complaining. He seemed to be one of those people who by their bad temper attracts all sorts of dramas!!!

First things first.........happy birthday Gwen.

Now Elaine, not such a good day but seems to be a bit better now than she was earlier today.

The first night that we stayed in Norseman all, or lots of them, the local kids came down to the oval to play but left shortly after dark. On the way out one of them knocked on the van door but disappeared when we answered. Because of the strong northerly winds expected, and as it happened received, we decided to stay put the following day. So on Saturday we just pottered around town then returned to the oval, this time joined by 2 other vans.

One thing that we have noticed the last couple of mornings is that the van motor doesn't like cold mornings or we have picked up a bit of dirty fuel. We will have to see how it pans out.

So Sunday dawned bright and cheerful and cccccold. We have now made the definite decision to head north to warmer climates in the hope that it will help Elaine's back. Norseman is the cross roads with the Nullabor to the east and Kalgoorlie to the north. So we drove north to Kalgoorlie and in this RV friendly town spent the night in their RV 24 Hr Stop at Centennial Oval on the edge of town.

This morning we were greeted by lots of people outside our van, our egos shot skywards with such a welcoming group then were deflated when we discovered that they were setting up for an inter- school (Catholic Schools) cross country run. So we went about or business, the usual dump, water and shop. Then headed out of town continuing to follow the north mark on our compass.

We have stopped for the night at Menzies where they have a delightful but basic low cost caravan park, with madams favourite accessory.......a washing machine! There are a few, but not many people here and I wonder why. It is a nice town with a well set out historical walk complete with story boards and statues. They also have a good historical display in the visitors centre and unlike some places it is all very nice and interesting. The buildings are also rather nice reflecting its goldming past. Then again it is the gateway to Antony Gomley's Inside Australia statues, all 50 of them on Lake Ballard.

Mr Slack at it again, this is morning after but I will do a more detailed blog later today.

First Elaine, not a good day yesterday but maybe slightly better this morning. Tonight we will be in warmer climes which will hopefully help.

We spent the night in Kalgoorlie at their RV park and boy was it cold this morning.

More later today.

Well today was a day was a day. I gather that Perth copped a bit of a bashing, up here we have had wind and rain but than keeping us in Norseman not dramatic. The wind was fairly strong and coming from the north and guess where we were planning to go. We spent the day collecting the balance of Elaine's meds then back to the visitor centre where we had lunch. Then back to the football oval for tonight.

The Elaine report says basically no change, although to me she seems to be just a little better.

Just to catch up on a few notes that I made along the way and have not used yet. On the way to and from Lucky Bay we passed a couple of large tree farms growing what appeared (to me) to be very tall, very thin eucalypts. There appeared to have been some sort underbrush clearing fire being replace by new leaves starting at the bottom of the trees. We are also intrigued by power poles, our understanding being that property owners are responsible for the maintenance of the poles on their property. Fair enough except that we saw lots of poles carrying power to the community (in other words going past the property) just inside property fencelines and wonder who maintains them.

 Our only complaint in the Le Grand National Park was the lack of a dump point for our toilet, either at the campground or nearby.

At Gibson Soak, which is a very small town of maybe 20 houses, there was an fairly large operational factory called the Gibson Soak Water Company.

Last night we stayed at Bromus Dam which, as I said, is a very old catchment that does not appear to be in current use. The area around the dam is set up as a bush camping area with tables, fire pits and lots of ad hoc spots to camp on. There were only 4 of us last night but there is room for large numbers of  campers who would need to be self contained.  My only comment is that it would benefit from a story board detailing the history of the site. There is evidence that there was infrastructure around the dam and there is a pipe coming into the dam from quite some distance away. This pipe is large, I guess about 1 mtr diameter, laid on the ground then covered to create a prominent mound. Where it enters the dam there is a spillway so my guess is that it brings water from somewhere.

As usual we were last out, by a large margin, and drove into Norseman where we picked up some medications. Then we went to the visitor centre to dump and top up our water tanks. Whilst there one of the staff directed us to a free camp for self contained vehicles at the football oval, which is where we are now. Oh, and the other thing that we had to do was get someone to fix our generator as the cloudy weather is not good for our batteries and last night it would not start and resisted my efforts to get it going.  It turned out that the issue was old fuel gumming up the carburettor and it is now doing it's job of topping up the batteries.

My loyal readers !!! will note that the last 2 days blogs have been published out of order.

The Elaine report says marginal improvement today but still a long way from good.

Today we have traveled about 180 km north stopping just south, about 30 kms, of Norseman. On the way we stopped for morning tea, at 12.20 pm, and discovered that someone have left last nights fire still smouldering. A definite nono so we shifted the big logs out and doused it as well as we could with our limited water, leaving it still not quite out but safe. We then reported it at the next town just 8 km away. This was Grass Patch and there and the next town, Salmon Gums had unusual church buildings.  They were similar sort of multi sided, but flat sides without the usual church rounded  doors, fancy roofs and windows  etc.

Our camp tonight is at a place called Bromus Dam and is a very old dam with rock walls etc. Quite a large area with lots of space, set a little way off the road but we can still just hear the trucks as they go past. This is our first bush camp of the trip and we have had our first fire (in our fire pit for safety) on which Elaine made a soup ( a little salty in her view, but I liked it) and cooked some lamb shanks for tomorrow.

Tuesday May 17

No blog last night, we didn't have coverage and I got lazy after making and eating dinner!

The Elaine report...She had a bad day yesterday and a reasonable day today. In fact my lady went for a walk down to the beach today, not far but down and up about 30 stairs.

We are at Lucky Bay in the Cape Le Grand National Park. This campground has about 22 sites but is the process of expanding to about 60 including one for tour buses. Already just up the hill from us are a bundle of sites almost ready for occupation. There is also basic facilities including warm and cold showers, camp kitchen with hot and cold water for cleaning dishes. The whole shebang watched over by a very nice camp host, who also collects the camping fees. The camp also boasts a whole bunch of camera friendly kangaroos. In fact on my walk today, cutting through a bush track, I almost tripped over a few of them having a midday rest, so I chatted to them as I walked past and they did not move.

The bay is rather pretty with continual small surf, it puts us to sleep at night and a very white very fine curving beach about 2 km long. There are also some fairly speccie big rocks alongside the camp. I have taken a couple of walks, unfortunately not bushwalks but good anyway with views out over the hinterland and the ocean with the Recerce Archipelago in the background.

Report first Elaine appears to have a better day, but last night was really bad.

We are on the move again having passed through Esperance (with much shopping as Elaine has been deprived for the last week or so) on the way to Gibsons Soak Hotel where we have camped for the night. Self contained units are allowed to stay here and we have just one neighbor.

The 120 km detour to Lucky Bay was well worth the effort as the scenery is very nice and the facilities were excellent. Our camp was about 50 mtrs from the beach in a spectacular bay, light surf and turquoise waters and the best white sand.  Lots of friendly kangaroos (or maybe wallabies as they were fairly small), ample space in each bay. The bay sizes are sometimes a problem as they try to fit too many campers into the campground, but this one was ok.

After leaving the camp we drove to a few places so that Elaine did not miss out on the spectacular scenery. I had seen a bit on my walks and one could easily spend a few weeks here taking in the walk trails.

First the Elaine report - not good but better than yesterday.

Last night we camped at Farmstay called Paradise Farm, somewhat an exaggeration, but very nice. We had cows all around that left the usual cow pats which I had to dodge when I worked around the farm. This is a fairly small farm, only 150 acres, about 30 kms from Esperance. There are a few farms around him of similar size with larger farms surrounding these small farms.

After breakfast etc we drove into town. One of the major advertised attractions is the Pink Lake so we took a route to go past it and to go along the coast into town. As pink lakes go we have seen much better, amongst other things it had shrunk considerably and was hard to even see! As for the run along the coast, it didn't happen even though we followed the signs, or though that we did. Morning tea was consumed overlooking the port which consists of just one, maybe 2 jettys, as far as we could see. They had just finished loading a large ore carrier, or similar, and we watched while they began to ease it of the jetty. Based on experience in Dampier and the size of the ship the whole procedure could take hours.....we didn't stay that long. The town itself was all shut down so we had to drove back to suburban IGA to pick up some much needed shopping and to use a laundromat.

Then we drove out to the Le Grand National Park, about 50 kms the other side of town. On the way in we passed "Stonehenge", a reasonable facsimile thereof. We moved on after taking a photograph as the wanted a $10 entry fee to get closer, mind you one could also buy food there. Then on to our chosen camp at Lucky Bay. There are 2 campgrounds here one on the main road and this one 9 kms further on. There are only 15 bays here so arriving at 3pm we got one of the last few. Like most national parks in WA there is a vehicle entry fee and a seperate charge for camping, in our case $6 plus 2 nights at 13.20 per night which is quite reasonable. They provide well prepared level parking bays, basic facilities in this case including hot showers, I presume solar heated, otherwise self contained vehicles are required. We have a site with million dollar views over the bay and will explore in more detail tomorrow.

First a progress report on Elaine, today was reasonably good but the pain is back tonight, just not as bad as it has been. The morning is always hard (getting everything working in the cold) and she did not do anything to aggravate it today. So fingers crossed that it will keep improving.

This mornings walk was about 4.5 km, but felt like a lot more than that, from the campsite to Hammersly Beach via the picnic area. This is my favourite sort of walk through bushland on a narrow well defined and marked track with occasional vistas over the inlet then the beach. At the start of the walk there was a set of stairs, not as much as Jacobs Ladder but extensive and just a starter. The walk was continually up hill then down into hollows, some with steps some without, over the dunes.So at the end I felt that I had done a weeks exercise but it was worth it for some great views of the whole inlet, which is huge, and the beach. The inlet is blocked off from the sea by a substantial sand bar which had quite big waves breaking on it and the rocks in the middle of it, so no entry for seagoing boats. I heard lots of birds but most of them were fairly shy.

Hakea is the resident flower here and is abundant and rather speccie. We left after breakfast (about 10.30!) the camp and took the scenic drive calling at the various beachs and camera opportunities. There is a lot of these and we were treated to some magnificent scenery most of it from high hills. This national park is definitely a well hidden secret, maybe not, but I hadn't heard much about and just chose it because the WA tourism site said it was nice, understatement it is very spectacular (I know I use this word a lot, mainly because it applies to a lot of the places that we see). The scenery is bushland on rolling, high, hills and and clifftop ocean views. It is not wildflower season, but there is lots to see, the season must be beautiful.

Tonight we are camped at the other site on the eastern side of the park, the Four Mile Beach Campground.

Thursday 12 May 2016

My first offline blog for this trip.

Today we have travelled a relatively short distance from Varley to the Fitzgerald National Park a mere 170 km. My walk this morning revealed Varley as a very small town, about 20 houses but with more depth than a lot of much bigger towns. Firstly a Rolls Royce, parked next to a prime mover truck, with lots of stickers indicating that it had benn out fundraising. Then around the back of the town to a huge general store/agbusiness on the edge of town. Then over to the rail area and huge ground based wheat storage, sort of temporary permanent, metal walls reinforced wall at ground level covered by enormous vinyl tarpaulins. Alongside these were the longest conveyer belt loading facilities that I have ever seen and the longest weigh bridge that likewise I have ever seen.

Onward to Ravensthorpe stopping on the way to fuel up at Lake King. The scenery remains farming and very nice. After that down towards the coast at Hopetoun chasing slightly warmer temperatures for Elaine's back. The scenery changed to dense bushland and is quite pretty in a pragmatic way.

Just before Hopetoun we turned right into the Fitzgerald National Park and this is a spectacular bushland park. We have driven along a very windy road about 20 km into the park to be camped, almost on the beach, at Hammersly Inlet on the south coast of WA. This is another well set up camp area and we have lots of neighbours.

So much for Elaine's back settling down, this morning it gave her absolute hell. I decided that we should head north to warmer climes but she disagreed and we continued as planned. Except that we knocked off nearly 300 kms today so that we would get down to the coast quicker. The theory is that it is warmer near the ocean than it is inland and the weather zone tends to support that theory.

So on the way we stopped at Hyden intending to visit Wave Rock, more about that later. The town itself had a very well executed historical tableau. It consists of a series of scrap iron statues depicting the history and development of the district. Very well done with light hearted story boards explaining the statues. Then we headed out to the rock just 4 km out of town. But there was a vehicle charge and we couldn't get close enough for Elaine to do the walk as short as it was. We could not see the rock from the parking area so we left without paying. Actually we have seen a few wave rock formations and they are all rather spectacular do we didn't feel to upset at missing this one.

The drive was very nice through farming country with a few rock outcrops to vary the scenery. Today we split the driving almost 50/50 which shows that Elaine is not 100% as she normally does nearly all the driving.

We are camped tonight at a small, very small, town called Varley about 80 km south of Hyden. Despite the size of the town they have a small camp area with a fee of a donation! We have 3 neighbours.

Well, well, well! We are finally on the move, Elaine's back is settling down just a little bit although there is still considerable pain. Anyway she felt ready to go so we unhooked from Karen's house and headed south. Hopefully the weather won't be too cold! Tonight we are at a bush camp 10km south of  Brookton. Quite a nice little spot with a water feature just on the edge of the camp, not much of a feature and it attracts mozzies. There is also a memorial to the local pioneers saying that this was the school site. Tomorrow we move east and south, more then.

Well guess where we are - correct, we are still on Karen's driveway!

However madam Elaine's back appears to be improving a bit and we are hopefull of leaving on Monday. When we do leave we will be heading to Esperance via Hyden then across the Nullabor to the Flinders Ranges. From there to northern NSW via Broken Hill then southern Queensland and western Queensland to Mt Isa. After that across the Barkley Hwy into the NT turning left at Katherine and heading to home via Kununurra. About 12500kms plus side trips.

We are still here in Perth. Today just a little bit of running around including a 'van' visit by our very nice doctor. At this point no action is expected before the weekend and maybe not even then. I will fill in the details including our intended route when we start moving.

Another day another dollar, in our case spent!

We are still in the metro area hanging around to make sure Elaine's back is ok. Tonight we have camped in Caversham. So there is nothing important to report.

Well here we are again and the blog she is up!!

We are still in the metro area having left home mid afternoon yesterday and spent the night in Karen's driveway. Elaine's back is still not fixed but, following last Wednesday's procedure seems to be improving a bit. Anyway we will see how we go and make our decisions based in her progress. Today has been spent saying goodbye to our family which is a sad happy occasion. Sad that we will miss all of them and happy that we are heading for the open road. Right now Elaine is resting her back after we have had lunch down by the ocean at Hillarys.