Geraldton WA. May 31 2018

A lovely relaxing day awaits us. I started with a nice long walk along the beach and around the fishos marina before breakfast. After breakfast we both went and had a massage, Judy in the Brilliant Massage place and myself in the Geraldton Thai massage centre around the corner. After two weeks driving my shoulders were pretty well knotted up but the masseuse was onto it and got me sorted out really well.

We have been having a conversation with a Centrelink assessor person from the Adelaide office regarding our pension claims, which was confusing at best, but his last comment was that he had what he needed and would send his findings to the process people to put up on the system. Surprise surprise, we both received a request this morning for more information, all of which we have handed in at least twice to date. Not to worry, you can't buck the system so we had to go find the local library and use their computers to access the web and some of my files and print it all out again.

Then off to Centrelink where they suggested we might like to come back later. So after lunch and a shop we turned up again at 2pm, documents in hand and took our position in the well used lounges. Finally we get the call and a nice man goes through our accounts (you never get to see them, so you are flying blind as to what they actually want), looks at our documents, and declares all is well.... except - your heart sinks - he reckons that we also have to produce a statement from AMP concerning   our last super-fund.  Our pleas to him to look through the actual documentation already submitted. But remember, you are not allowed see what they can see on the system, so your arguments are dismissed out of hand. It's almost as if you, the supplier of all the documentation could not possibly know what any of it contains. I even showed him the document in question on my laptop. No dice. There is nothing for it but to go and get a fresh copy of the statement and then there was a surprise: you can actually access the internet from the public computers at Centrelink, something they never told me at Woden. That would have saved me heaps of time in the past, but now we are focussed on getting the requested statement. He was very nice, firm but nice. He gave us a hand written note with his name and suggested that when we had the document, to just ask the lady at the front door to pass it to him.

Our mood lifted, we printed the document and approached the lady. 

'I can't give documents direct to a specific officer', she says with a cold hard edge to her voice. 

Everyone in the entire office (it's like a fish bowl and nobody has anything better to do than watch other people's dramas play out) could see the confusion and distress in our faces, even the nice little man. But the law, is the law and would we please take a seat and wait to be served. Now, in a Centrelink office you get a split-second to conform to any directive or the security officer starts to move toward you. You can't even stand up and wait. So you meekly take your seat as close to the nice man as possible and eyeball him. He is with another customer and it becomes crystal clear that rule #2 is that they must never interact with more than one customer at a time, even though he had to get up, walk past us to the printer and back. 

Finally he calls us over and checks the document against something on his screen and declares that it is adequate, stamps the document and adds our Centrelink number to the top. He is dismissing us when we demand that he double check both our accounts and confirm that we are not in arrears in responding to there demands in any way. He agrees and after a few more minutes clicking and flicking he declares all is well and we are free to leave.

The day now being well and truely run, we retire to the van. I for one need to let of some steam so I headed for the beach for a nice long walk.

I took some snaps which I'll put here to lighten the mood of this blog.

Looking north, nice and sunny. Geraldton WA

Looking south, they have been telling all day it was going to rain... Geraldton WA

Looking east, the Moore Point lighthouse, the oldest steel lighthouse in Australia,
erected on this spot 1877.  Geraldton WA

Looking west. Hard to see, but the boiling water in the foreground is a bunch of bait fish being
 rounded up by a dolphin for its dinner.  Geraldton WA

As we are looking west, may as well grab a snap of the setting sun. Geraldton WA

Suitable expunged of all ill-feeling, I wander back to the van and settle down for the evening.

Geraldton WA May 30 2918

Fairly short run of 340km today, leaving Mount Magnet and heading west, passed through Mullewa where we stopped for a cuppa, and on into Geraldton. We are camped-up in the Belair van park, which is just south of the town centre and right across the road from a beach, which I think is Point Moore beach. At least that's what the lighthouse is called so I'll go with that. All the beaches here are open to vehicles and this one started to fill up as families came out to play and fishos to fish. They are having a bit of an uphill battle trying to stop the ocean taking back the sand dunes, they may be fenced off to keep us out and let the vegetation re-grow, but nobody told the water it wasn't allowed to cut chunks of the dune away.

Lighthouse. Point Moore. Geraldton WA

Sand dune, Point Moore. Geraldton WA

It being a nice day, sun almost out, decidedly warmer than the last two weeks. We ate lunch at a cafe on the beach in town. Very pleasant. After that we went and paid our respects to the 654 men who were lost at sea when the HMAS Sydney sank in the waters off Geraldton following a monumental battle with the German Kormran. Since we were here last, they have added a memorial pool representing the exact location of the wreck, which was found in 2008.

HMAS Sydney Memorial. Geraldton WA

HMAS Sydney Memorial. Geraldton WA

This is called The Steele a stylised representation f the prow of the ill-fated ship.
HMAS Sydney Memorial. Geraldton WA

The Dome of Souls: 645 silver gulls representing the crew.
HMAS Sydney Memorial. Geraldton WA

The Waiting Woman, watching out to sea, waiting for the return of her loved ones,
as she has done since time began.
HMAS Sydney Memorial. Geraldton WA

The Pool of Remembrance, representing the coastline at Geraldton,
the exact map reference of the wreck's resting place, both linked by the symbolic dove.
HMAS Sydney Memorial. Geraldton WA

HMAS Sydney Memorial. Geraldton WA

Mt Magnet WA. May 29 2018

Another long-ish day of more-of-the-same: scrubby, mostly flat with low hills in the distance... no, wait, they are great heaps of tailings from the many mines that must be there out in the bush. All we can see of them are the mounds of dirt, the occasional road train full of ore, and a nice neat blue 'MINE SITE' sign pointing down each one's dirt access road. We are heading for a place called Leinster about 130km away. When we finally get there we miss it altogether as its a few km up the road to Wiluna, whereas we really want to turn west again and head toward Mt Magnet via Sandstone. Sandstone is only another 150km away and we haven't seen anything else, apart from a growing number of dead beasts on the side of the road: kangaroos and cows, each with its attendant eagle on the top and flock of ravens picking away at the edges.

We stopped in Sandstone, intending to get fuel, have a rest and do lunch. The fuel was a single bowser with credit card facility - simply do it yourself and move on. Taking a rest meant using the conveniences next to a mining museum, taking some random snaps of 'town' and going back into that museum for a look-see. I amused myself by walking out into the middle of the busiest intersection and taking snap in each direction, just to give you a feel for the place

North. Sandstone WA

East. Sandstone WA

South. Sandstone WA

West. Sandstone WA

Finally we landed in Mt Morgan, expecting it to be a bigger town, but found ts only bigger in the way it sprawls out across the plain. The van park is pretty good, but the only coffee shop closed at 1pm. We made a promenade down one side and back up the other of the one block, a side step up another block toward what was listed as 'railway platforms' on the brochure, but when we saw it in the distance, changed our plan and went back to the van! How's that for excitement?

Mt Morgan WA

Mt Morgan WA

Mt Morgan WA

Both Mt Morgan and Sandstone are again typical of the towns out here in the Goldfields Belt: They boomed back in 1900 odd, lasted 5 or six years and then all but disappeared overnight. Mt Morgan went from 10,000 people to 200 in a year. Would the last person out please turn off the lights?

Here's a snap for my bird-fancying friends

Bird. Small. Yellow head. Pointy beak. Mt Morgan WA

Leonara WA. May 28 2018

Out and on our way just after 8am. No wind today, made for a pleasant enough drive up to Kalgoorlie, where we stopped for fuel and to restock the pantry. It was still a bit early, but we had lunch as well before jumping back on the road and heading toward Menzies. It's all in the timing as they say, and this time we hit the sweet spot, pulling out just in front of the 8 metre wide, wide load crawling along the highway going in our direction.

We didn't stop at Menzies, but much to my surprise it's a very clean, very neat, very small, town. I had imagined that everything 'out here' would be rough and ready and dry and dirty, but no, they appear to be neat and tidy. On we went straight to Leonora, which is where we are pulling up for the night. Leonora is small, maybe one street bigger than Menzies, and then another surprise: the one caravan park is clean and green (real grass!) and appears to be almost full. The oddest thing though is that the office is only open from 8-10am and 4-6pm. Apparently we are supposed to wait outside until they turn up, but as they were there they booked us in and we found our spot, possibly the biggest and best on in the park.

We wandered the 200 metres up to town, had a glass of wine in the 'genteel' bar, as opposed to the 'skimpy bar', and then strolled over to the info place. It turns out that there is a ghost town just outside of Leonora, called Gwalia. It's story is that it was a mine founded in 1895 and a corrugated iron and hessian bag town sprang up next to it. While it was never gazetted as a town as such, it persisted right through to 1963 when, following an accident and unexpected and immediate closure of the mine, it disappeared totally within three weeks.

Well, it didn't disappear, as the following snaps will attest, just that the people caught the first train out of town and never came back. The mine buildings etc became a museum and some of the better house have been reoccupied, but there is a bunch of building still standing and apart from being empty, are just like they were when they were abandoned in 1963.

Shops. Gwalia WA

Gwalia WA

Ex Mine works, now a museum. Gwalia WA

Murals. Mine Museum. Gwalia WA

Murals. Mine Museum. Gwalia WA

Hole in the ground. Gwalia WA

Hotel. Gwalia WA

Gwalia WA

Gzunder tree. Gwalia WA

Gwalia WA

Gwalia WA

The mine underwent some ownership changes but is working again, however it appears to have no impact on the ghost town of Gwalia, given that  everyone now lives in Leonora, just 2km up the road. Mind you the tram they installed in 1910 has long gone.

Norseman WA. May 27 2018

Today was a rest day, and while Norseman may not be everyone'c choice, it has it's own intrinsic charm and is certainly relaxing. Yesterday we popped into the info place and the nice man launched into his spiel about all the wonderful things to do in and around his town, one of which was the self-drive Coach Road tour. It's part of the old coach road from Norseman to the now non-existant Dundas, which sprang up with the start of the Dundas Goldfields, 'Second in importance in WA to Kalgoorlie-Boulder'. The amounts of gold they extracted from these old mines is positively eye-watering in todays $1500 plus per ounce terms. We're talking about 100,000 ounces from this one goldfield. Even at the then rate of ￡3 an ounce it's more than the economy of some countries. It would be fascinating to track where that wealth ended up as it dissipated around Australia and the world. Certainly not much of it stayed here judging by the lack of grand civic buildings and community infrastructure.

Armed with the tourist guide we set out to discover the 10 sites as listed...

Tourist brochure The Dundas Coach  and Heritage trail,
Norseman, WA

... we followed the dirt road south out of town until we reached Site 1, the racecourse, which wasn't anything much to look at: just a pile of makeshift looking stables and the like and a dirt oval track in the distance. However humble, these once-a-year race meetings are an important social event

Site 1. Racecourse. Norseman, WA

Site 2 seemed little more than a stop on the track to house the Information Board regarding the coming of the coaches to the district that finally gave some form of transport to and from Esperance, The coaches were called Cobb & Co but were never run by C&C.

Just a sign telling us about the coaches and their part in the early days. Norseman, WA

A little further on we come to Site 3 which gives you a chance to see what a 1990's style open cut mine looked like. As has been the case all through the district, as the price of gold rose and the technology to extract it improved, old mining leases were reworked and even more wealth, in some case, extracted. Judy is seen here climbing the tailings wall, from which you can see the open-cut mine hole, and marvel at the amount of revegetation taking place

The Lady Mary Mine and townsite is next at Site 4. Most of these mines had little 'towns' associated with them, there being little point in trudging the long miles back to Dundas or Norseman. And way out here in the arid scrub the lack of clean water and the non-existant sanitation led to high death rates from diseases such as typhoid.

The only visible bit of old mining junk we saw all day. The boiler from the  Lady Mary Mine. Norseman, WA

They would have us understand that there was a town here back in the heyday of this particular mine.
One has to use one's imagination. Norseman, WA

And then here lies poor old James Dennis who was killed in the only too frequent accidents
 both above and below ground. Norseman, WA

 Heady stuff indeed. Next was The Iron Duke Decline at Site 5. The 'decline' terminology refers to the angle of the slope down which one goes into the mine and originally referred to the angle of the strata as it dipped or declined into the earths crust. The Iron Duke is fairly recent, it is a sloping hole 120 metres long dug in 1987 in an attempt to intersect with the mother load of the old South Mary mine. Needless to say it was poorly funded and failed within a few years.

The adit of the Iron Duke Mine. Norseman, WA

Social life was an important distraction from the hard slog and harsh conditions. Here at Site 6 we find the remains of a cricket pitch, laid in 1890 buy the Break'o Day mine people and still almost serviceable. No need to have sandpaper in your jocks here, the pitch and the ground of the 'oval' would see to any scruffing up required to the shine of the ball.

Cricket pitch at the Break'o Day mine. Norseman, WA

Site 7 is a 1960s style head-frame that was used over the Rose Hole mine, a reincarnation of the Edwards Mine, which itself was notorious for perhaps being a bit 'dodgy'. these hard-rock mines needed equipment and labor and the money came from floating a Company in Adelaide, or Sydney or London, and well, who was ever going to know what happened to the $50,000 raised by sale of shares?

Mine-head, Rose Hole mine. Norseman, WA

The first find in the district is attributed to William Moir and his May Bell mine, Use more imagination, it was here somewhere. What is here are at least two iron posts from the 1986 extension to the telegraph line, installed to connect Coolgardie with Eucla.

Iron telegraph pole circa 1896 and insulators. Norseman, WA

More valuable than gold. That would be water out here and these enterprising pioneers built a dam of sorts to collect and hold the water from any rain that fell on the rocky outcrop. Basically a hole was dug and the walls lined with rocks. 

Rock lined walls of the water reservoir near Dundas. Norseman, WA

And finally we make it to Site 10 and the town site of Dundas. It is disappointing as all you can see over the tops of the information boards is the scrub. Someone has put up two street signs to give you some orientation but there is just nothing there. 

The one-time township of Dundas was reputedly right here. Norseman, WA

Ok look, a street sign. Dundas WA

The information board for the town states that on any pleasant Sunday, the gentry of Dundas would troop out to pleasant surrounds of  'Dundas Rocks' for a day picnicing and socialising. They sign says that the rocks are 2km south of Dundas, but we found them 700m due west. Or at least that's what the sign on the highway suggests. Anyhow, here's the rocks that we are told are the very same Dundas Rocks

Dundas Rocks. Dundas WA

Later in the day we revisited Lake Cowan, a huge salt lake which is part of the prehistoric river valley  system the whole place is situated on and around, and took some more arty snaps.

Norseman, WA

Norseman is right in front of that tailings heap. Norseman, WA

Lake Cowan. Norseman, WA