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