Day Eight.........................Thursday November 16th

A decision was made this morning.......... I sent out a few messages to family and friends ....."Just having brekkie then packing up and moving on and hoping to make Perth this afternoon, will prob stay there for a week".....It was 9am by the time we left due to Barry having a chat to a guy who had vehicle problems......we exited the park via the dump point as you do!!

Back on the highway and heading to Coolgardie.........

..........more of the same landscape, red dirt, mine sites, low bush and trees.............

.....and still more of these signs...... don't think I want to meet a cow on the road, and looking at the bush and vegetation I can't imagine cattle in this country either???

A sign at the entrance to Coolgardie stated it was the Mother of Goldfields......so I have been to Google again to find out more.........the following info is credited to the internet...........

 Coolgardie, known as the Mother of the Goldfields in honour of its position as the first town of the Eastern Goldfields.

Coolgardie was gazetted in 1893 and, by 1898, was the State’s third largest population centre with 15,000 residents and at least another 10,000 in the district. In 1899 the town celebrated its mining industry with a World Exhibition attended by more than 61,000 people.

At its peak in 1900 Coolgardie had 23 hotels, three breweries, six banks, a hospital, two stock exchanges, a wide range of businesses and three daily and four weekly newspapers. There were electric street lights, the first public swimming pool in the State and 700 mining companies registered with the London Stock Exchange.

While I did not get any more photos of the buildings in Kalgoorlie Boulder, I did snap some on the run driving through Coolgardie.

Following along the highway was this pipeline............... and I went to Google again for some information on this..............

The discovery of gold in Western Australia in the 1880s and 1890s brought a succession of gold rushes with thousands of prospectors hoping to make their fortunes. This led to a population explosion in a dry and barren desert region. Lack of water in the area meant poor sanitation, with diseases such as typhoid common. The Western Australian government borrowed money for a pipeline to bring water to the new and growing towns. Government engineer Charles Yelverton O’Connor, who’d already built the successful Fremantle Harbour on the west coast, designed the system and oversaw construction. O’Connor had to deal with continual attacks from politicians and the press during construction. Many thought the engineering project was too complex and would never work. Stretching 560km from Perth to Kalgoorlie, Goldfields remains the longest water supply pipeline in the world. It still supplies water to the area today.

Driving on the highway we saw some ?? examples of driving and this one had us scratching our heads............note the double lines..............

                                       

We came upon this memorial  and Google gives some information about this also....... how sad for the families of these men..........

Three WA men were killed and one man injured when a bushfire in the Boorabin National Park rapidly changed direction while their trucks were attempting to pass the blaze. Throughout the day the Great Eastern Highway had been closed intermittently between Southern Cross and Coolgardie.

The road all the way through has been amazing and then we came across a very rough terrible section and commented about this. Not long after there was a 20km section of new road being made.

After the decision was made to head to Perth Barry spent some time on the phone trying to book accommodation for a week. It was a frustrating experience staying on hold and waiting to talk to someone. One place did say they were booked out, so we thought to try again later........

We pulled off the road to check out this rabbit proof fence...........

....and Barry spent more time on the phone. The short story is that we found out that Perth was very booked out until Sunday, due to the Coldplay concert that was being held at Optus Stadium!!! Time to go to Plan B, so we decided to pull into a free park at Meckering for the night and reassess our schedule.

Along the road we came across this overturned trailer, with it's load of grain all over the highway.

The country side changed from low vegetation and trees to occasional cropping land, and it was interesting to see farmland after so many days of trees and little else. I was quite amazed when we came across the first farmhouse and sheds that we had seen and then even a paddock with sheep!! Harvesting of the crops is in full swing and we saw bunkers and silos of grain.

After another phonecall we decided to head to Toodyay the next morning, (which is just north of Perth) for a couple of nights and hopefully head into Perth after the concert.

Below is our camp at Meckering.

Blessings, From Jude