Monthly Archives: September 2020

Traipsing through the Goldfields homewards

We were still driving long distances between towns when you compare most other countries but less than 250 kilometres in a day was small fry for us now. Meekatharra marked the point when we started to feel much closer to home and, also, when we started to wonder why hadn’t we come out here before?

We had now met quite a few other ‘senior’ travellers in similar circumstances to us, with time and money available and only WA to explore in these Cov19 times. In the Goldfields, there seemed to be a number on our exact route who were staying at the same accommodation! That was in addition to the multitude of miners and contractors who made all the motels and hotels seem a bit like mining camps.

For four consecutive nights we stayed at old historic Goldfields townships: Meeka, Cue, Sandstone and Leonora. What they all had in common was a rich past (literally paved in gold) with some wonderful buildings still standing, a resurgence in mining activity due to present gold prices and an appreciation of their tourism potential.

All four were tidy and well looked after, accommodation was available and the roads were excellent. The main streets of all of them were very wide, probably for stage coach turning, with well posted walking trails to follow around the historic sights, some maps of which are available on line for most of the towns.

Cue presented itself well through its sense of being in history and its isolation, just sitting ready to be re-invigorated by more regular tourism and other more long lasting local business. A local advised there was plenty of work in town, though not enough houses for would be residents. We stayed at The Queen of the Murchison BnB on the main street, a fabulous old building with welcoming hosts, Joyce and Darryl. Our room was the best we had had on this trip, large with comfy chairs and the most comfortable bed for weeks! Good wifi too! Many accommodation businesses rely on mining to survive with drive in-drive out miners and drillers creating ongoing livelihoods.

As we drove between the towns, we passed old and newly working mining tenements, ghost towns, mulga bush and red dirt interspersed with the occasional blaze of purple, yellow or red spring flowers along the roadside. We frequently pondered how the early miners and their families survived in such harsh conditions, living in tents and showing amazing resilience and improvisation and how quickly whole towns sprang up with fancy pubs and newspapers and all sorts of mining related commerce. Mining was such a dangerous occupation with over 1800 fatalities in WA in the 20th Century. The attraction of gold and the wealth possible from its discovery brought thousands to a very unforgiving land.

Sandstone, which nowadays would struggle to number 50 permanent residents, was a small city of 6,000 with 4 hotels, 4 butchers and 2 banks and a railway to Geraldton via Mt Magnet. When the gold ran out or it became uneconomic to mine, people and often buildings were relocated to other towns. We did the tourist drive on a well graded road and came across the London Bridge, where picnics were held in the heyday and camel trains and carts were driven over the increasing fragile ‘bridge’. The heritage listed “Battery” looked out over acres of old tailings piles. Tailings mountains dotted the landscape throughout the trip from Port Hedland to Kalgoorlie.

The Shire of Sandstone provides the only fuel station in town now, self-serve, with diesel and ULP available, though there was mention in the town newsletter of upgrading to provide ULP95 too for all these higher tech cars like ours that run on something more refined. A tip for travellers is to check ahead for fuel availability at local tourist bureaus en route as Menzies only had diesel on offer when we passed through.

The only surviving semi-intact gold mining ghost-township of the goldrush period is Gwalia, near Leonora, which still has an active mine right beside it. It is a heritage site of national importance with dozens of refurbished buildings including the Mine Manager’s house, designed by US President Herbert Hoover, and the original mining head frame built of Oregon pine in 1899. The simple huts and rooming houses built of tin with whitewashed hessian sack walls and dirt floors are open to view, so it is possible to get a real idea of how everyone lived. The community and the Shire of Leonora have done a great job with the restoration.

Lake Ballard is a must see for anyone passing through Menzies. Take a right turn off the main road south and 50km on a mostly sealed road brings you a large, dry, lake bed stretching for kilometres and lots of photo opportunities provided by the landscape and Antony Gormley’s eerie sculptures set into the salty ground. The light was perfect with cloud cover early before the sun blazed.

As you drive closer to Kalgoorlie, the Great Western Woodlands stretching all the way to the south coast and westwards to the Wheatbelt, an area the size of England and the largest remaining Mediterranean climate woodland on Earth. Although much of it was felled as fuel for domestic and mining use in the past, it has survived and is thriving with such diversity that 20% of Australia’s eucalypt species exist within it. The trees are slender, with multiple coloured trunks and crowns of green and they look spectacular in the late afternoon and early morning light.

Kalgoorlie, or Kal in the WA vernacular, is the Goldfields capital, a place of mining renown and intrigue with a history of booze, brothels, gambling and big bucks. We had not enjoyed Kal on a previous visit 30 years earlier when the girls were still openly plying their trade in Hay Street, it was dusty, a bit sleazy and seemed like it was stuck in time. This time round, it was cleaner and with more purpose and tourism was a major additional business. With so much architecture dating from 1895-1920, it felt a bit like we were visiting parts of Tony’s hometown, Dunedin, and most of the buildings are well-preserved and fit for purpose. Mining is still the main industry and the Superpit, which is now once again jointly owned by two Australian companies, will only employ locals, no fly-in fly-out workers. The Golden Mile deposit in the middle of Kalgoorlie is one of the richest gold deposits in the world with over 1,000 ore lodes, some extending 1800 metres long and 1200 metres deep.

The Tourist Tram ride took us on a 2 hour tour of the main sites in Kalgoorlie Boulder, including the Racing Museum and the Boulder Town Hall with the famous Goatcher Theatre Curtain installed..

Kal was the spot on the map where, after six weeks of discovery, we turned right, heading for home!

Heading west towards Fremantle, we stopped first in Coolgardie, only a short drive from Kal. Gold was first discovered in 1892. At one time, Coolgardie was third in area and population only to Perth and Fremantle. It almost disappeared before tourism revived it somewhat.

Coved19 limits on backpackers entering the country, coupled with the lack of young city people interested in a country adventure has meant that many regional businesses are short of staff, some choosing to close down and thus reducing the offering for the tourists who do come through looking for food and respite. The pub landlord was closed the day we visited due to having no cook and the only food in town was at the roadhouse, where the harried assistant commented that she couldn’t wait for retirement and produced the best almond milk hot chocolate.

We were gradually slowing down our tourism activities in anticipation of being close to home – only another day away… Though we did manage some enthusiasm for another two museums on our penultimate travelling day, both telling stories from a different perspective. Coolgardie, a gold town past its heyday but with an excellent museum and only $2 to go in. Finally, a couple of hours drive away we got to Southern Cross in time to see the Yilgarn Mining and Pastoral Museum. Southern Cross is a settlement with plenty of future at the edge of the Wheatbelt. We had scored the last bed in town in the Palace Hotel and the lack of tea-making and ensuite facilities spoke more about the modest price we paid.

The workers were up and off to work early – breakfast was only available at 5am or 6am shifts – so we decided to get out on the road on a brisk morning. We lasted till Merredin where we found a marvellous breakfast and arrived home by lunchtime.

We both felt six weeks of travel was the perfect time for this journey as living out of a suitcase and a different bed each night can become wearisome if there are no longer stays included. We did see so much of this great state of Western Australia. We had discovered new destinations, been surprised by the scale of mining throughout the NW, taken in some amazing landscapes, and driven 8500 kms. We returned home content and already planning the next trip to see the things we missed this time round …… definitely worth the #WanderOutYonder!

Pilbara, Iron Country

We thought we’d take our time returning south from Broome, drive manageable distances of 3 or 4 hours only per day. So with that in mind we stopped for the night at the Sandfire Roadhouse, about halfway to Port Hedland from Broome. It is an oasis in a harsh environment which was started in the 1980’s when the road was still unsealed and has been flattened by a number of cyclones. There were plenty of other overnight travellers plus peacocks, fruit bats, mango trees and a vehicle cemetery. I suppose when your car stops running here it is cheaper to abandon it than the alternative of transporting it at huge expense. Welcoming staff and good food too!

Port Hedland looked interesting on our way to Broome so we planned a 3 night stay at the Hospitality Motel at Cemetery Beach. This beach is an important turtle nesting site and you can also walk out at low tide and check out the coral reef. We had a room with a sea view over the coral beach, the Spoil Bank and the shipping channel out to the rows of bulk carriers waiting for a berth. The Spoil Bank is composed of material dredged from the shipping channel into the harbour which is an ongoing operation and the government is supporting a proposal to build a marina for the existing yacht club and recreation around the bank.

A couple of tours were organised through the visitors centre to get an appreciation of the vast scale of the port’s operations: a twilight bus tour with Pilbara Tours around the rail lines, conveyor belts and some of the 19 shipping berths in this huge harbour was excellent and we learned a lot about just how much iron ore is shipped out of Port Hedland and contributes to the Australian GDP – a mindblowing amount of $$$. We had a glass of bubbles to watch the sunset and the port light up.

Phil, at Pilbara Tours, also does daytime tours of Dampier Salt operations. The salt produced here is of very high quality and used in chemical and plastic manufacture etc.

The highly recommended Pt Hedland Seafarers Centre told us a lot about the important role they play in supporting ships’ crews with pastoral care, advocacy, onshore fellowship and recreation and the boat ride brought us up close to the massive ships that sail in and out like clockwork. The day we were there, there were 19 ships in port and 43 ships in the holding area offshore waiting to be filled up. There are over 1,000 km of conveyor tracks taking ore from stockpiles to the ships, loading ore at the rate of 8,000 tonnes per hour. It takes 30 hours to load one 345 metre long ship and 3,500 of these ships move in and out of the port annually. About $US430million worth of iron ore is exported daily; in addition, salt, lithium, manganese and scrap metal is also exported from here.

The port has so much growth planned with more berths being built for FMG and Roy Hill that the WA Government is now buying up residential land in the old town because the prevailing winds blow the red iron ore dust over the town. Housing is now further along the coast or over at South Hedland, a planned community 15 kms inland.

The Port Hedland Historical Society museum is housed in the 120 year old Dalgety’s pastoral services office building, and showcased the old Port Hedland, a commercial centre for the sheep industry, now, of course, long gone thanks to dingos and mechanisation.

We watched the “stairway to the moon” from Cooke Point when the full moon slowly appears well after sunset on the horizon and its reflection shows in the receding tide across the mudflats. Because there are such prodigious tides in the north-west all the towns seem to advertise this feature.

By week five, we have moved into a routine of a couple of sights/tours/walks per day or some driving and then relax a lot with plenty of books being consumed. We are headed inland now on the way back to Perth, so the next time we glimpse the Indian Ocean it will be from the Beaconsfield ridge, back at Mardie St.

Next stop after Port Hedland was Karijini National Park, about 3 hours’ drive. Tony was returning after 10 years and as we drove into the Hammersley Ranges a lot of memories flooded back for him of his visit with our UK friends. We had 3 nights booked at the Eco Resort, a glorified camping ground and cafe in the middle of the spinifex and gums. The glamping tents have wooden floors, an en-suite bathroom, a giant and very comfortable kingsize bed, a couple of verandahs and lots of flaps and openings to allegedly allow the breeze the pass through. On both days, the daytime temperature was about 35deg C, although, admittedly, it cooled to 18deg C at night… so, without any cooling, it was quite warm but we appear to have become acclimatised by now so it wasn’t too hard to deal with! The restaurant has some very good meal choices such as crocodile tail curry and roasted roo loin and plenty of quenching libations available.

Karijini is rightfully acknowledged as one of the premier tourist attractions in WA but it’s remoteness and climate means it will never be overrun with visitors (that said, the resort has been fully booked since it reopened after covid restrictions this year). For the adventurous, there is lots to do, as the amazing gorges where the temperature is only in the low 20’s can be explored on foot. But to get down there, you usually have to descend a rock stairway of over 200 steps and sometimes a number of ladders. So, in deference to Sally’s fitness and minimal climbing ability, we just took it easy. We drove to the popular viewing platforms, took some short walks along the top of the gorges and took lots of photos of the beautiful, coloured iron stone and the bizarrely shaped gums. A swim in the most popular pool at Fortescue Falls and a wander into the easiest gorge were admissions that we could take it easy and still enjoy the sights. There were a couple of rough gravel roads to traverse but slowly does it and the car survived unscathed but very dusty! Karajini is well worth the effort to get there. The landscape is massive and majestic and so different to what we see in the South West.

We drove to Tom Price one afternoon for fuel and were a bit gobsmacked by the price – $1.86/litre for Unleaded 95 – the most expensive fuel we have purchased so far this trip! A note to remember is that not all roadhouses/towns have Unleaded 95 or 98 and some towns only have diesel, so it is worth checking with tourist bureaus before you drive and to fill up when you can, just to be on the safe side. We have been very impressed with the 650-700km capability of one tank in our Suzuki XCross Turbo and its excellent performance given it is only 1.5 litre engine size – powering along with no trouble at all at slightly over 110km/hr for hours at a time. Luckily, we encountered only a few caravans and soon got used to passing road trains with four trailers – the new caravans of the desert, along with the etiquette of driving in the bush and making space for very wide loads on a regular basis.

Still in the Pilbara, a couple of hours drive from Karijini, Newman is the site of the biggest iron ore mine in the world, Mt. Whaleback. We planned a couple of nights here as the mine had tours and they were only on in the morning, but after spending a few hours looking around we realised we didn’t need to stay 2 nights. So, some quick googling and a few phone calls and we had the next 4 nights planned, the only negative was another 400km driving day.

Newman is basically a company town. Our hotel was in fact mainly workers accommodation and we got to experience the ‘donga’ life of a FIFO. Our small room was clean and nicely decorated but designed for a large miner, not a couple, as there was no door between the bedroom and bathroom and not much room to move. We ate in the mess hall, albeit with quite a tasty smorgasbord dinner and friendly diners, and we were suitably forewarned about the need to have showers and wear clean clothes, not dirty hi-viz, before entering! The entire town is covered in red dust from Mt. Whaleback with more than 6,500 permanent residents.

The mine tour was an eye-opener; the sheer size of the mine and the sophistication of production and logistics has to be seen to be believed. As well as processing and blending different types of ore from both sides of the mountain there are also other mines nearby supplying ore which is then processed and transported by rail to Port Hedland. Most of the conveyors, crushers and laboratories are controlled remotely from Perth, the 800 workers employed here daily, drive the haul-pack trucks, huge diggers and the trains.

BHP is seeking to have a 50/50 gender split in their workforce and has achieved about 40/60 so far with many women working as truck drivers and operators etc.

After finishing the tour we were treated to a scones, jam and cream morning tea which meant we could get on the road south immediately after. Next stop – Meekatharra.

Broome-time

It was crazy driving from Karratha to Broome in one day (750 kms) but a lot of people were doing it as the road seemed pretty busy. After only an hour or so in Broome town we felt at home – relaxed, tropical and humid as we celebrated our long day with a drink at Divers Bar next to the RAC caravan park where we were staying. It was like a 1980’s beer barn, loud, crowded and boozy. We stayed in a one bed studio which had plenty of space and a useful kitchen for self catering. The Café attached to the Caravan Park was excellent with cheap, tasty meals and barramundi steaks twice the size you would find in Perth.

We started off the next day with no real plans but by midday we had booked ourselves into a number of tourist excursions plus another night and had re-planned our itinerary. There is certainly plenty to do in Broome and the Tourist Bureau was very adept with bookings and advice. Our original plans were to drive on into the East Kimberley and the Northern Territory, but covid quarantine restrictions put a dampener on the NT. Now, we discovered many East Kimberley businesses are not at full capacity without their usual customers flowing in from the eastern states. Hiring a 4-wheel drive in Broome was going to be difficult because of the amount of people arriving by plane from Perth wanting a vehicle. So, we decided to stick around the West Kimberley for 10 days and then wend our way south.

Broome’s Chinatown is now full of tourist shops and restaurants and its colourful history is visible in the lovely old wooden buildings with large window shutters and the little laneways. Mother of Pearl shell was a major industry in the early days with Broome supplying 90% or more of the world market once Europeans settled here in the 1880’s and realised the area’s potential. With the advent of diving apparatus, Indigenous divers were mostly replaced by Malays, Filipinos and Japanese and the town’s population became very multi-cultural. The cultured pearl farms superceded the mother of pearl market and there are about six pearl farms operating nearby on the Dampier peninsula and selling their wares in town.

We were staying at Cable Beach, about 3 kilometres away from the main part of Broome. The beach is a swimming paradise with a flat wide expanse of sand and a few small breakers, so we made the effort and swam and walked on the beach daily. The climate favours tropical fruit so to find a mango farm seemed exactly right, a mango flavoured pizza was something else. Delicious and with a cold mango lassi to wash it down. Salt-water crocodiles are native to the coastal regions of northern Australia so Broome was a natural fit for a farm and refuge for these huge, fearsome creatures. Operating for over 40 years, Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Park has hundreds, all ages and sizes. They take in injured and dangerous crocs, breed them and they care for them.

Greg Quicke is quite a well-known TV astronomer and his Astrotours are usually booked out, but we managed to get the last 2 tickets. Out in the bush away from town lights, with about a dozen powerful telescopes and a few binoculars for a couple of hours, he waxes lyrical about the solar system. Saturn and Jupiter are very bright at the moment and with the moon only a week away from it’s full glow there was plenty to see. Because Broome is 18 degrees south of the equator and skies are usually clear in the dry season the environment is perfect for star gazing and it was interesting to learn the difference in the sky between Perth (32 degrees) and here.

The next day we were whisked out to the airport for a really special trip in a small 4-seater Cessna with Air Kimberley. Touring up over the Buccaneer Archipelago, we viewed the Horizontal Falls and then up across Koolan and Cockatoo Islands where iron ore has been gouged out for over 50 years. The airport on Koolan stretches down the island’s spine and on both sides the earth falls away into the mine. On Cockatoo the mine has been resumed by the pounding waves a number of times only to be pumped out as the ore body is so valuable. From there we flew down across the tidal flats to the Dampier Peninsula and landed at Cape Leveque. A walk on the ancient beach framed by red rocks and a swim, then lunch of, you guessed it, barra at the Kooljaman Resort. About 200 km from Broome on dirt roads, the cape is a pretty laidback holiday spot with a few pearl farms and indigenous communities. We didn’t want to risk our car on the dirt road out to the Cape and missed out on visiting the Brown Family’s Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm but flying over it was a great alternative. Perhaps next time we are in Broome?

On our return to Broome airport, we encountered a Qantas jet aborting their landing as the westerly wind had suddenly arrived; we then had to repeat their feat when we were violently thrust upwards and to the right, but Oliver, our very capable pilot, handled it well and got us down safely the second time around. Sally who had never been in a small plane was positively buzzing afterwards.

The last tour we had booked was a whale watching trip out into Roebuck Bay guaranteed to see a humpback. Now, we have done this before, in Southern Sri Lanka when we felt a bit cheated because the blue whales were hidden amongst the colossal container ships plying some of the busiest shipping lanes in Asia and could barely be spotted. This time we knew why they made the guarantee, 35,000 humpbacks migrate between the Kimberley and Antarctica and travel past Broome every six months. This is a whale freeway so in 90 minutes we spotted over a dozen individuals including a couple of very pale coloured babies. Because of the “rules of engagement” with these colossal creatures the captain had to maintain 100 metres between us and the whales, although as he said the humpbacks hadn’t got the memo, they swam under the boat a couple of times. The resurgence in numbers of humpbacks since the bans were brought in in the 1970’s is astounding as it’s estimated over 200,000 were slaughtered and they were nearly extinct. We had boarded the whale watching boat moored about 100 metres off-shore from a flat broad beach onto a 3-wheeled motorboat whose wheels retract once in deeper waters, a sight to behold.

A visit to the Sisters of St John of God Heritage Centre gave us an insight into how tough life would have been in the early 20^th century as it detailed what the Sisters did working with indigenous communities around the West Kimberley. Performing extraordinary pioneering health and educational work in the absence of any real government assistance until the 1970’s, they started up a leprosarium, an orphanage, schools and paediatric clinics. Unfortunately, there was no real in-depth discussion of the stolen generation, a lot of children were separated from their parents and their tribes which caused and is still causing irreparable harm to all indigenous clans.

A weekend in Derby was a way to see some more of the Kimberley without going too far. We drove through cattle country amidst boab trees and across the mighty Fitzroy River floodplain which can flow 15 kilometres wide (second only to the Amazon River). Derby is another spaced-out country town, it is situated on a long peninsula leading into King Sound, where the tides are up to 11.6 metres (or 36 feet) a tidal difference which means there is an enormous amount of water rushing in and out every 6 hours.. A tidal power station was proposed here for years but has yet to get off the ground. The port and town are well past their heyday when shipping and an abattoir provided plenty of employment; nowadays some cattle, mineral sands and a link to Koolan Island keep the port operational. Its obvious that few government funds are flowing in nowadays. We checked out the jetty, walked the town’s heritage trail and visited the museum situated in the Wharfingers building but there was little else to do.

Returning to Broome where the 50^th anniversary edition of the Shinju Matsuri festival was in full swing, we made sure to attend a few events around town. Everyone commented on how busy it was, there was certainly plenty of flights coming into the airport in the middle of town but we never experienced crowds, everyone was working on Broome-time. We continued to pace ourselves by doing a couple of things each day, like seeing an arts performance, visiting an exhibition and the museum, going to Matso’s brewery, swimming every day and reading lots of books. After checking out an art gallery warehouse in an old house we purchased a wonderful piece of indigenous art from Warakurna in the Eastern Goldfields. It is quite big so we’ll have to find room for it at home.

Now we are working our way back home via Port Hedland and the inland route and we have a date for our return to Fremantle. Our trusted house sitters, Jess and Warren, have found a rental in the difficult housing environment in Perth so we plan to get back in a fortnight. Lots more travelling and exploring this wide and wonderful state to do before then though!

Nearly all the places we have visited we have come across backpackers working in tourism and hospitality. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them here in WA this year so there are plenty of jobs available for those who want to try some travel, exploring their state and doing something different.

#WanderOutYonder #Broome #Derby #AirKimberley #AstroTours #WhaleWatching