2015/10 Australia trip - Kalgoorlie |
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We took the Hyden road out of town and across a dry lake. Hyden’s the location of the most famous Wave Rock but we were just going a few miles to a fossicking area; that’s 
an Australian term for prospecting. This one had been well worked over with pits and mounds everywhere, but there looked to be plenty of agates there still. These agates had not been rounded by water action and they were glassy and razor sharp, not a good area to be driving around.
Once Sandie had a bucketful of agates we went to this overlook of the salt lake, part of Lake Cowan.
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Lake Cowan (0.36) |
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We took the road north towards Kalgoorlie, where we hoped to find some Wi-Fi and a holiday pass to all the Western Australia parks. We drove along the edge of two massive lakes, Cowan and Lefroy, both dry. The area isn’t quite a desert but its rain arrives in a handful of big storms, when the lakes are wet for brief periods. 
There were many side roads, most of them gated, and leading off to gold mines.
We had many stops for Sandie to look at some new flower, and there were always more we spotted once we stopped. We weren’t going to make it to Kalgoorlie before dark, but these were the flowers we’d come for.
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Lake Douglas flowers (0.42) |
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We found a place to camp at Lake Douglas, just outside Kalgoorlie, a popular spot, especially on a Saturday night. We found a quiet spot back amongst the trees. The flies were bearable so I cooked outside, but I had problems keeping the moths out of the curry.
Sunday October 11th
We’d noticed last night that there was no one in the lake or even camped close to it. The water looked OK but it is surrounded by gold mines and perhaps the locals know something we don’t.
We drove into the city of Kalgoorlie, which was very quiet; despite the weird time zone most places open at nine. We aren’t all that keen on cities but it was nice to walk 
around this one with very little traffic. Many of Kalgoorlie’s buildings have survived since the days of the 1890s, grand designs financed by tons of gold.
The city gets very hot in summer so the shopping streets are shaded. We were surprised to see green grass growing on the traffic islands but then we realized that it was plastic, some form of AstroTurf!
The visitor centre was out of park passes but pointed out that all the parks in that area were free anyway. We could get one closer to Perth. They gave us directions to Wi-Fi 
and water. We went to the Dome Café, a grand looking establishment with décor to match; their Devon teas (scones, jam, cream) were not that great but the Wi-Fi worked well and we sent our emails.
We tried to fill our water tank at the city’s water point, but had lots of problems. Our original stainless steel tank had begun leaking on our 2010 trip to Cape York. John had installed a plastic bladder inside the tank to fix the leak and keep the protection of the steel walls; it was the right fix but the small input tube meant that the tank had to be filled very slowly. Unfortunately the city’s tap was a press down that delivered all or nothing, so we got very wet and weren’t sure if we actually filled up. Somewhere in this process I fell back out of the camper, smashing my shin but lucky that I didn’t knock my kneecap off.