Saturday 28^th  July

Said farewell to Peter & Loraine (after another burger for lunch –  that’s three this trip –  three more than I’ve had in the last ten years!), who have been our travelling companions since Yulara.   We have enjoyed their company and learned a good bit from their previous travel experience.  

So we really are on the home straight now, we were going to stay at Coolgardie but changed our plans and will stay in Norseman tonight.

Monday 29^th  July

We had thought we’d go to Peak Charles and then Lake King on the way home but after 10 ks we decided that this was possibly the worst road we’d been on and we didn’t need to be on it, so we had some lunch in the sunshine and returned to the main drag.   We had passed a place called Bromus Dam (another of the dams built by the government to provide water for the steam trains), this proved to be a lovely quiet spot so we set up the fire, made a cup of tea and read in the sunshine.  

Roger decided to climb the rock, which is surrounded by concrete stub walls to direct the rainfall to a collector for the dam. There must have been some rain here recently as there are many pools in the depressions in the rock.

The temperature drops dramatically as the sun goes down and the fire is soon keeping us warm on the outside, whilst a three parts decent Shiraz works for the internals.

 

Monday 30th July

We have a leisurely start to the day, we have a target bush camp for tonight called The Breakaways (another set of Breakaways, the others were in S Australia).  

We return to Norseman and cross Lake Cowan, a huge salt lake that stretches north and south an overall length of 100 ks, on a causeway.

 

This the road that we travelled eastbound on when we started our trip nine weeks ago.   It is a good road which is kept in good order for the traffic to the mines which are at about 140 and 180 ks from Norseman respectively.

Actually we don’t see much traffic apart from four road trains hauling ore, we generally pullover and stop to let them go by.

Our lunch stop is at McDermid Rock, one of several granite outcrops in this area.

  After fortifying ourselves we decided to climb the rock and have a look round.   The view from the top is bush as far as the eye can see in all directions, Disappointment Rock is clearly visible to the east abut that’s about it as far as features are concerned.   As at Bromus, this rock has many standing pools and would be a mecca for animals and men alike because they hang around after much of the other surface water has dried up.

 

Another sixty ks down the road, past the Flying Fox and lounge Lizard mines and we arrive at The Breakaways.   We haven’t been here before but we can see right away that it is a very agreeable spot.   The term ‘breakaway’ seems to be used to describe a geographical feature where there is a sharp change in the surface features, ie; a cliff of almost any height, exposing rocks of various colours from red to yellow and orange, which catch the sun and have a different appearance at different times of the day.

 

 

We lit our fire in a ring in our own little recess in the rocks and settled down for the pre-prandial glass!

Tuesday 31^st  July

I had hoped to get some photos with the morning sun on the rocks but there was no morning sun, it was a very grey start to the day with the threat of rain.   If it is going to rain we want to be off the dirt road as soon as possible because they become quagmires very quickly and we have another 120 ks to go. 

Fortunately the rain we can see in the distance stays in the distance for the time being.   The road remains dry so easy driving, sometimes there’s actually traffic but due to the dust you get plenty of warning of its approach.

 

About 60 ks out of Hyden we pass an accident, a four-wheel drive appears to have left the road and there are two ambulances in attendance, one probably from one of the mine sites.   This is a salutory reminder that dirt roads can be dangerous, even when dry, the loose surface gives you nothing to grip on and if you lose it on a bend you don’t stand much chance.   This is not the place to have such an accident, there is very little traffic and unless you have a satellite phone or HF communications you have no way of calling for assistance.   In any event the nearest medical assistance (a Nursing Post), is in Hyden, the nearest police in Kondinin 100ks and the nearest hospital would probably be Norseman 200 ks to the east.   Let’s hope they weren’t seriously injured.

Tonight we’re staying at Narrogin and a longer than usual drive 323 ks.

Wednesday 1^st  August

A slow journey today, no hurry, lunch in Dwellingup, home at about 2:00pm.  

As we were driving the last few ks up the freeway we did consider keeping going and heading north, which perhaps shows that we are really becoming ‘grey nomads’!

12,938 kilometres, 2,493 litres of diesel, across the bottom to the south and east, back through the middle, 6 states(territories).

We had a great time and can’t wait to get back on the road again.

We hope you have enjoyed the blog and would really appreciate any feedback, regarding the content; too much / too / too little, not enough pictures / too many pictures, too often / not often enough, also how difficult it was to get access to the blog, several people have said it was confusing.

We look forward to your comments.

Cheers,

Pat and Roger