Off to the Bush

As you can see there was rain in the air on our first morning.

I'm just glad I forced myself out of my very cosy swag to

grab my camera and capture this sunrise.

It was time to get back to the bush. We packed the necessities; food, water, swags, dog, into the Land Cruiser and drove about five or six hours east along the Great Eastern Highway from Perth to Coolgardie. Look here to read the history of this wonderful old mining town.

Coolgardie owes its existence to the discovery of gold at nearby Fly Flat, 120 miles to the east of Southern Cross, back in 1892. The development of the town was typical goldfields hysteria. Within four years the railway had arrived and within six it was the third largest town in Western Australia (after Perth and Fremantle) with a population of 15,000 (with another 10,000 in the area) serviced by three breweries, seven newspapers, and 26 hotels.

The town was laid out and named in 1893 and it became a municipality the following year. The Post Office opened in 1895 and the following year electricity and a swimming pool enhanced the hard life of the miners. By 1897 the level of enthusiasm about the potential of the region was such that over 700 mining companies had been floated in London. The water pipeline arrived in 1903 and that was an engineering feat in itself.

Looking on a map the area would appear to have multiple lakes but these are salt lakes. In 1895 the first plans were prepared for an engineering feat to stagger the world — an attempt to pump water uphill some 500 km, from the hills near Perth (Mundaring Weir) to the goldfields of Coolgardie.

On 24 January 1903, the dream became a reality. Today, water is supplied to over 100,000 people and six million sheep in an area covering 44,000 square kilometres (two thirds the size of Tasmania).

However, we were NOT there looking for gold. No, just looking at rocks. In fact, every inch of these goldfields is 'pegged' so it's hands off!! Unless you own the lease or have permission.

In addition to gold there is a huge amount of nickel in the goldfields and these photos above show an area where they have been testing for deposits.

Great Rock Dog!!

Driving along one of the dirt roads we came across a camel!! As you can see, he scarpered pretty quick. (If you look closely or click on the photo to enlarge you will see in the dead centre of the photo is one camel bum.) It isn't all that surprising to see a camel, however. I don't know the exact statistics, but there are hundreds of wild camels roaming Western Australia. They are leftovers from the days when they fared better than horses across the desert.

Below is a photo of Lake Lefroy and when I first looked across and saw it thought it was a sea, it's so vast! It's over 50 miles long. You can read about the harvesting of salt from this lake here.

Land sailing is very popular, apparently, and this is the perfect place for it. See this.

So where are we off to next, asks the great explorer, Woody?