Wave Rock

From Esperance we headed west along the coast but had to take a 35 km diversion over dirt roads to get around a storm damaged bridge, washed out by a cyclone ten days before.. We left the coast road and headed into the outback again to reach Hayden, the home to the Wave Rock. It is huge, but unlike Ayres rock, had been weathered spectacularly into the shape of the biggest wave ever.

To give you an idea of the scale of this wave, I took another shot with Marion and Maureen in view.

This is the front of the rock but we walked along its side,

and even climbed it.

We did look both ways, were very impressed, but were unable to make the climb to the very top because the heat was in the forties and we made a discreet withdrawal to the ice cream shop.

Leaving Wave Rock, we returned to Perth and the next day left for South Africa. Maureen and Rob had given us a wonderful memory of Australia, its immense size, spectacular scenery and always wonderfully friendly people. With heartfelt thanks to Rob and Reen, John and Barbara and all our friends, who had made us so welcome, we waved good bye to Australia wondering if could really be our last visit?

Esperance

On the road again, but this time going south, away from the high temperatures towards the coast and a more moderate climate. We are heading for Esperance on the coast with a forecast of rain. Last week the area was hit by the tail end of a cyclone and roads were closed, a bridge washed out and the port filled with silt.

On the way we found a shady spot in Norseman for a picnic and 400 km later arrived

in the picturesque town of Esperance. It is an important port for the regions farmers and miners and surfers love the bays to the west.

We walked along the pier and found some of the locals in dispute over fishing rights.

The highlight for us was to see the sea lion scare off the shark with the minimum of effort.

Kalgoorlie

On this visit to Perth, we are heading 650 km into the outback to the mining town, Kalgoorlie. The town is so important to Australia’s economy that shortly after gold was discovered on 19 June 1893 by Patrick Hannan, a pipeline was built to carry water to the town. The pipe was constructed over the desert for the whole 650 km, it’s a long pipe!

One of the highlights offered at our Kalgoorlie hotel was a tour of the local bordellos, but we thought a visit to a local pub would be more refreshing.

The Western Bar even has two swing doors to swagger through.

The reason for the town’s existence is gold and so we chose to visit the big pit, a working open cast mine and also a disused deep shaft mine.

The original mine was started by Paddy Hannan, digging with hand tools until they found rock too hard to drill by hand. When expensive drilling equipment was needed a mining company took over the work. The site is littered with a curious range of mining, ore processing and the necessities of living. The site is well worth a visit to give a flavour of the life of a miner in the 1890s outback.

The equipment looks primitive, but the Living and working conditions of the miners were even worse.

We three intrepid miners ready for a long 45 min shift.

After our arduous shift down Paddy’s mine, we found an excellent restaurant, shared a couple bottles of wine and set out to explore Kalgoorlie at night in a definitely merry mood. The bordellos looked very boring in reality but Comet McNort was spectacular.

There are few shaft mines left working in Australia, most mines and now open cast operations digging for a wide range of precious metals. In Kalgoorie the Big Pit is probably the second biggest hole in the world, the largest is in Utah, outside Salt Lake City. As soon as we arrived at the pit, we asked to leave as they were about to blast the hole even deeper. When we returned, ten minutes later and had our first view of the hole, the immense size of the mine was staggering.

This is an area they are drilling, about a tenth of the prt we could see, the little black dots top left are $4,000,000 dumper trucks each carrying 225 tonnes of ore. You can see them more easily below.

The big diggers here are really big!

Robin and Maureen

After three fabulous weeks in South Eastern Australia, it is time to go West where two friends from a previous visit, Rob and Reen who live near Perth have organised a little tour for us. The flight from Sydney to Perth across the centre of Australia, in an Airbus 300 will take nearly five hours. It would have been a long walk!

We have visited Perth before and both love it. Rob and Reen live in a beautiful house in Ocean Reef,

a small town, north of Perth within a ten minute walk of one of the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen. On our first day we had to take a stroll along the beach.

A little way down the beach some kite surfers were showing off their skills. It looked great fun. I wish we had more time to join the fun.

Canberra

Not far to the east of Wogga lies the Capital of Australia, Canberra, the seat of government since early in the twentieth century. It is a city working to show off the places and people of government. As we approached the bridge over Lake Burley Griffin, separating the business and government sections of the city, we were startled by a huge jet of water rising into the sky. The Captain Cook Memorial Water Jet was spectacular, especially in the drought conditions all around the country.

Canberra is full of memorials commemorating the country’s steps to independence. This carillon is a gift from the British government in 1970 to celebrate Canberra’s fiftieth year as the capital of Australia.

You can see that they were too mean to give them four walls to hold up the bells.

The Telstra tower can be seen from all parts of the city and of course the views from the viewing galleries are wonderful. The management are to be congratulated for extending Seniors concessions to retired teachers from the UK. Good on ‘em,

The main reason for visiting the capital was undoubtedly to visit the old and new houses of parliament. Both buildings are spectacular, beautiful, functional and best of all, open to everyone.

The Old parliament is the white building above and the new parliament is behind it, a little further up Capital Hill. The grass you can see is growing on the roof which makes it a little difficult to see clearly. Above the roof is a “flagpole” made of stainless steel.

It is very spectacular in the sunlight.

Inside the new parliament, designed by Romaldo Guirgola, the members have a beautiful building to work in.

In the old building, things were not so bad either.

From Capital Hill the view down Federation Mall, over Lake Burley Griffin, up ANZAC Parade is of the Australian War Memorial. It is not simply a memorial to those who died in war but a representation, through artefacts, models and film of what happened to people during the conflicts that Australians became involved in. It was undoubtedly thought provoking.

Wagga Wagga

During our journey north from Albury we were aware of a thin haze of smoke in the distance which was probably from bush fires further north. There was only a faint smell of smoke but it reminded us of how close disaster is to the people of Australia.

Once in Wagga Wagga, known locally as Wogga, we explored the city and were very pleasantly surprised to see how much open space and beautiful parkland there was. The wonderful glass and art galleries were well worth seeing. On the way to the glass gallery we came across this beautiful lake, completely covered with lilies at each end but with evidence of abundant wildlife everywhere.

Beautiful Lillies

Great Cormorant

Cheeky Turtle

At the eastern end of the lake is a spectacular gallery of beautiful works of art in glass. We were not able to photograph the exhibits but they were uplifting and a joy to see, a feast for the senses.

Further south are the botanical gardens which contain a small zoo and a miniature railway that runs on the first and third Sunday of each month.

In the gardens as well as the zoo, the birds were a delight to see and hear.

Still Unknown

Cockatiel

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo

Marsh Wallaby

Albury

Today we travelled from Echuca along the Murrey River to Albury. On the way we went through Yarrawonga, a very small place with banners along the highway encouraging people to move there. Intrigued, we turned down a small road and in less than 100yards we came across this huge lake called Mulwala, formed by the Murrey River. There were lovely houses with lawns sloping gently down to the lake; so we now know why people might like to live there.

We walked around Albury this evening and came across a cheeky little bird in a park

and a solitary paddle steameron the Murrey. It was looking very lonely compared to the fleet at Echuca. Unfortunately it is unable to travel on the Murrey at the moment as here, the water level is too low.

Echuca

A little further north from Bendigo, on the Victoria and New South Wales border are the twinned towns of Echuca and Moama. This bridge was sent in parts from Scotland in the late nineteenth century to join the two towns and states.

We stayed in Victoria’s Echuca in temperatures around 40 to 42°C, very hot so we took a river trip along the Murray River in a beautiful old paddle steamer, the Canberra.

There were lots of paddle steamers of various sizes in this busy port

as there were in the past when the waterways and the paddle steamers formed an extensive transport system.

The Canberra has a renovated wood burning steam engine that that drives the paddle wheels quietly along the river. The river level is now kept fairly constant with weirs and dams but in years gone by it frequently flooded to the levels shown on this tree.

If you click on the tree the picture will enlarge and you can read the dates.

We found a delightful bakery and coffee shop in the High Street with a back porch overlooking the Campaspe creek.

It looks like something out of Crocodile Dundee but this is in the middle of town. It’s hard to beat outback, good coffee and great sausage rolls.