Norseman WA, Lake Cowan WA

Norseman WA April 1, 2015
A rest day today. Time to go and experience all that Norseman has to offer. First stop was the info centre where we enquired after the Heritage Trail, something to do with Old Dundas some 20 km down the old Cobb and Co road. On our way to the start of the road we took a snap of Hardy Norseman, the nag that started it all back in 1894. The story is that the prospecting party out in the field from Dundas had given up. Obviously there was nothing here. One of the blokes was Lawrence Sinclair, who was from the Shetland Island and known as the 'Norseman'. Well, anyway they are ready to pack it in when his horse kicks the ground or something and bingo, right there was a nugget as big as your fist. They started the mine that became the town and the town was known as Norseman after the horse. Or so they say.

Hardy Norseman, founder of Norseman WA

Having bagged our nag, we went into the museum, housed in the old School of Mines. Interesting collection of stuff, a bit different to most, probably because a lot of it came from the mining school itself

Museum in Mining School. Norseman WA

Brian back in school. Norseman WA

After that we slid up the hill to the lookout behind the mine, passing 'the worlds biggest' heap of tailings (whats left after they crush ore and extract the gold). Sadly, you can't see a thing from the lookout because the trees have all grown and blocked of the view, except for a glimpse of Lake Cowan in the distance.

Heap of dirt. Central Norseman Mine. Norseman WA

Lookout. Norseman WA

The view, if you stand on the table and reach up as high as you can. Norseman WA

Back on track for our heritage trail, we were stopped dead in that very track by a sign blocking the dirt road and announcing that it was closed (because they had a little rain overnight and dirt roads get chewed up very badly if you drive on them when wet and if you drive on it we will slap you with a very large fine) OK, so what now?

Obviously coffee from the only cafe in town. Actually you could go to the remaining two servos but that's not the same. While Judy was getting them in, I took some snaps of the 'thing', which I think is supposed to be representative of an mine-head, but has zero signs to say what it might be, and the pub and the main street.

The thing in the middle of Norseman WA

Dereliction. Norseman WA

The pub. Norseman WA

After coffee we decided that we'd had enough excitement for the morning and returned to the van to laze about until lunch. After lunch, we took up the second-most exciting thing on the tourist map: the woodlands walk. Its out of town about a kilometre and up a rise. There is a rubble path that wanders around for 700m, and 13 markers telling you what bush you might be looking at (its not always obvious). On the way back we snapped a few camels that had wandered into town and then left with nothing else to do, headed out toward Hyden, to the west.

Corrugated Camels. Norseman WA

Corrugated Camels. Norseman WA

This was fortuitous because the road goes straight across the salt-lake Lake Cowan and up the other side to a nice lookout, marred only by the old crank free-loading camping up there in solitary splendour. We made his day, a sightseer to come out and annoy. I casually asked how he found this particular spot and he started boasting about how he used wikicamps, as did all grew nomads (Judy and I are not, just for the record). I said we just used an old fashioned map and that seemed to work ok as well. Lake Cowan is something like 4km wide and 90km long and is dry most of the time, except for when its wet-ish.

Lake Cowan. Norseman WA

Lake Cowan. Norseman WA

Lake Cowan. Norseman WA

Lake Cowan. Norseman WA

Lake Cowan. Norseman WA

Gads, must be arvo teatime. Seeing as the only things open are the IGA and the pub, Judy grabbed a few things and we went back to the van and she cooked home-made, and made-up scones, on account of not having any buttermilk. Did I mention the 10,000 marauding flies? No, well they sent us back indoors behind fly-screens to get some peace while we had our cuppa.