Friday May 16

For those of you who have stayed tuned, we have just had two nights in Leonora and have moved on to Laverton today to start our trip east on the Great Central Road. It already seems ages since we left the coast and despite our initial sadness we are now well and truly back into the swing of loving these inland landscapes with their varied vegetation and environments.

As planned, we left Coral Bay last Sunday morning and on reaching the road south were horrified to see that the Minilya-Exmouth Road was still closed because of water across the road further south. ‘Rats!’ we said (it was really much more expressive than that!) as the need to go north to Burkett Road, then across to the NW Coastal Highway before turning south added 160km to our journey. The drive across to the Coastal Highway did, however, provide an opportunity to marvel once again at and, in reality, remember, the incredible red sand hills that cover the area. We were very impressed with the amount of water on the sides of the road and the number of floodways. Once we were on the highway, there was even more water alongside the road, so no wonder the recent rain had caused so much havoc.

Another advantage of the detour was that we were able to stop and check out the Lyndon River – the very waterway which had covered the Minilya-Exmouth Road a little further west and caused said detour! The river was still flowing quite quickly and it was very obvious that it had been considerably higher than it now was.

This Galah was keeping a very close eye on me from its River Red Gum perch

Finally made it to Minilya Roadhouse and felt that we were truly underway. We spent Sunday night at a roadside stop between Carnarvon and Geraldton and went in to ‘Gerro’ on Monday morning to stock up for the journey home. Monday night’s camp was at the Milroy Nature Reserve near Mullewa and it gave us a magnificent chance to familiarise ourselves with the huge grain and ore trains of the region, as the railway line ran right by the side of this very small reserve!

Milroy Nature Reserve

On Tuesday we travelled further east, with water all along the sides of the road, through Yalgoo and then on to Mount Magnet, the oldest operating gold mining settlement in WA - alluvial gold was discovered here in 1891 by a bloke looking for a lost swag. We spent the afternoon enjoying the 37km Tourist Trail, which allowed us to see the remains of the goldrush era, current gold mining operations (from a distance only!) and the amazing breakaways at The Granites.

Open cut gold mine

Amphitheatre breakaway

The Granites breakaway - the harder red granite has eroded to expose
the soft white granite

As above!

The moon over the breakaway

What great curly bark this acacia has!

Wednesday’s travel took us further east to Sandstone, listed as one of WA’s most picturesque towns. Gold was discovered here in 1894 and its heyday before World War One saw the streets busy with horse-drawn wagons and donkey and camel trains and some 6,000 – 8,000 people. The current population of 42 must be very proud of their town, as it is beautifully looked after and we enjoyed wandering around looking at the historic buildings and the Gold and Wool Interpretive Park.

The National Hotel - has operated continually since opening in 1907

As we drove to Sandstone we noticed an occasional rounded, bright green tree which stood out vividly from the surrounding grey Mulga and had to stop to check it out as it looked so out of place in this dry environment. When Murray showed the lovely lady in the Visitor Centre and Museum a leaf we had souvenired, she told us it was a Desert Kurrajong.

Just out of Sandstone is London Bridge (how many places have a London Bridge and I bet there is a beautiful Aboriginal name for this place!), a remarkable 350 million year old weathered basalt formation which is part of a larger breakaway. More magnificent colours.

Between Sandstone and Leinster we had a great time identifying some of the trees we were seeing along the way using the little 'Trees of the Goldfields' book I bought at the Visitors Centre. Because of the recent rain, things were looking quite green and we were surprised at the amount of vegetation.

Marble Gum - the signature tree of the desert and the largest eucalypt
found in WA's deserts

Marble Gums with a swathe of epicormic shoots after a fire

From Leinster we drove south to Leonora, our goal for the day and the last ‘big’ town before Laverton and the Outback Way.

On Thursday we fulfilled a dream I have harboured since our last trip to WA and did a 300km round trip south to Lake Ballard, 51km west of the northern Goldfields town of Menzies, to see the 'Inside Australia' art installation. British artist Antony Gormley used 3D scans of the inhabitants of Menzies to create 51 sculptures cast in a stainless steel alloy containing iron, chromium, nickel and trace elements of vanadium and titanium oxide from Lake Ballard. These materials are all found in the Achaean rock of WA.

The sculptures are spread over 10 square kilometres in Lake Ballard, a large and usually dry salt lake. It was just amazing – the sculptures themselves were fantastic, but the setting made it truly stunning and worth every centimetre of the drive. The recent rain meant that were was water in some parts of the lake, which added enormously to the beauty of the installation.

Lake Ballard

Another wonderful native tree - the inland weeping form of Native Willow
(Pittosporum angustifolium)

The gorgeous orange fruit of the Native Willow

On our way back to Leonora we were excited to see a Wedge-tailed Eagle feeding on a dead kangaroo by the side of the road. When we turned around and went back so I could try for a photos, it took off but luckily landed in a nearby tree, from where it gave every appearance of glaring at us for disturbing its meal.

A lucky shot as it got sick of being stared at and decided to swap trees 

We called in to the Gwalia historic site just south of Leonora, the residents of which were immigrant workers who came to Australia from Italy and Yugoslavia in search of a better life. It became a ghost town virtually overnight when the ‘Sons of Gwalia’ gold mine, the first manager of which was Herbert Hoover (later to become 31^st President of the USA) closed in 1963. We wandered through the old miners’ cottages, taking lots of photos to share with our neighbour Laurie, who lived in Gwalia as a kid. It was amazing to think about this as we walked around.

Open cut mine at Gwalia

Lots of people lost their beds to make this fence!

On Thursday evening we were a bit nervous as the weather forecast during the day was for storms and rain, which could muck up all our plans. It did rain a little overnight and when we left Leonora this morning things did look a little ominous. We were very positive though that it would all be fine by the time we reached Laverton, where I had planned to take one last photo of us by a sign for the Great Central Road, stick it on this post and publish it, as I had loaded everything else last night.

Trouble was, it rained off and on most of the way to Laverton and by the time we had organised our permits for the WA and the Northern Territory sections of the trip at the Visitors Centre, fuelled up and had a coffee it was raining much more heavily, so we just took off and I forgot all about my blog update! We have travelled 303 kilometres along the route, the rain stopped after about 120km, the road conditions improved greatly at the same time (although they had not been too terrible) and we are spending the night at Tjukayirla Roadhouse, where I have bought some WIFI so I can publish this update.

Whew - will do a much better description of this part of our trip next time and add some photos, but will get this finished and published before I run out of time!!!!!