Wednesday
After breakfast of bacon and eggs we left Fraser Range early about 8am and drove to Southern Cross, stopping at the roadhouse in Cocklebiddy to have a look at a small museum, have a coffee and take some photos. We also stopped at Coolgardie, a town which at one time was the third largest town in Western Australia. It now has a population of 800 and slowly growing due to an increase in tourists because of the history of the town which is being preserved. We were going to stay here, but the caravan parks have not kept pace with historical restoration and look like they belong back in the 18th century so we moved on to Southern Cross.
Southern cross was a very tidy town and the caravan park was very clean and well maintained. There were only about four other vans there when we arrived. We stayed for two days and when we left we were the only ones there. It was so cold the morning we left that the windscreen was all iced up.
On the road again we decided to head north when we got to Northam.
Finally we are now heading in a northerly direction and hopefully it will get a little warmer.
We stopped at Cunderdin as Ross spied a sign saying Museum. The museum was part of an old pumping station which pumped water from Kalgoorlie to Mundaring, 560 kms of pipeline, built in the 1890's called the Golden Pipeline as it supplied all the towns in the Goldfields with water.
The museum, which was really cheap at $3.00 each, was among the best we have seen in a country town. One of the displays was about an earthquake on the 14th October, 1968, in the next town called Meckering, which practically destroyed it. The display invites you to sit down in a living room done up in the 60’s era. All of a sudden the whole room begins to move from side to side. The TV sways and there is an awful noise. Then it subsides and the old TV has a program explaining what happened and the aftermath for the then 250 residents. It says the worst thing was the aftershocks and then it begins to move all over again.Later that day we drove through Meckering and the only sign of the earthquake was a sign saying "Meckering Fault Line".
In the museum there was also an old passenger train. As soon as you enter the carriage it activates sounds and you hear the whistle of the steam engine and voice of the conductor and passengers.
Ross was interested in two very large steam driven pumps which had been relocated to this station, since the original pumps at Cunderdin were taken out and disposed of due to the pumping station being turned into a cement factory. When the cement factory closed it was decided to make the building into a museum. It must have taken a lot of work to take apart such large machinery and put it all back together again. The photos don’t actually do justice to the size of the engines or for that matter the building itself.
Saturday June 22nd
We are at Goomalling which is a very neat small town. Goomalling council welcome and encourage us "grey nomads". The caravan park here is $10.00 a night and beautifully maintained. Needless to say it is almost full. Ross is extremely disappointed as the town must be in a valley (judging by the height of the antennas on the houses) and TV reception is down to one channel (9) so no footy last night or tonight. I am being very spoiled as Ross gets up and makes me a cup of tea and toast to have in bed.
This afternoon we went to have a look at an historic Homestead called Slater House. The ruins of the homestead and other buildings were bought from the Slater family by the council who along with government grants and fundraising is restoring these beautiful buildings back to their original state using local timber and rock since the original buildings were built from locally sourced timber, rock and slate.
The Slater family back in the mid 1800's had 12 children and along with six children from neighbouring properties they set up a schoolroom. The teacher stayed there for thirty years in a very small room attached to the classroom which was very small also and hard to imagine 18 children housed in there at one time. Another thing is that the schoolhouse was built near an inn and at one time it is believed that it may even have been attached to the inn as well as the other buildings by walkways. Seems unusual for a school to be so close to an inn.
There was no cost to look around and we were shown around by a lady who is also a local Councillor and has a lot to do with the restorations as well as the innovative practice of providing cheap camping for people like us. We purchased a lovely afternoon Devonshire tea each in typical country hospitality fashion there was so much it was a struggle to eat it all, but we managed!!!