Almost there

Every holiday comes to an end and our little holiday in Esperance was over.
Time to move on again, so we filled up the water tank, the fuel tank and the food cupboard and hit the road. On our way out of town we stopped at a weigh bridge - something we'd been meaning to do for ages, but they are few and far between. This one was at the local cement works and they only charged $6 so we took advantage - oops! overweight!!
 I suggested that next time we weigh without the full water and fuel tanks!!!???!!
 There was nothing we could do - I'm sure that 80% of motorhomes are officially overweight, but it gave us food for thought and something to debate over the next few kms. Maybe tow a trailer on the next long 'bush' trip and don't carry the generator and extra fuel if staying on main roads, within range of fuel and caravan parks.

                 We stopped for lunch at Pioneer Park in the abandoned town of Scaddan.

The town was originally called "Thirty Mile", its' distance from Esperance. The area was first 'opened up' in 1910 with 1000 acre blocks. The locals changed the name to Scaddan in 1915 but it wasn't officially gazetted until 1924.
It's a really lovely spot, beautifully maintained by the local community - there is no 'centre', no town, but  there are still people living in the surrounding area.

When the hotel was opened, because it was on Crown Land, it was not allowed to serve alcohol - they therefore operated as a B &B on the Cobb & Co coach route, calling the hotel "The Temperance Hotel".

                                                 It is still standing today - but only just!

            A nice spot to rest, but it is officially a 'day use only' stop - no overnight camping.

We carried on north, towards Norseman and stopped early in the afternoon, about 30kms south, at Bromus Dam. A large wooded area around an old dam.

The dam was built in 1925/26 to ensure a reliable water supply for the steam trains that ran between Coolgardie and Esperance. There are several of these dams in the area; Karalee Rocks and Dam, where we stayed on our way out to the Kalgoorlie Rally at the start of this trip is one. Karalee Dam is filled with water through a flume channelling runoff from the rock but Bromus Dam has no flume and appears to have been filled by a pipeline, possibly from another dam further off in the bush, but we didn't venture off to check it out. There was some water in the dam and even some 'gold' fish - whether they were goldfish or Koi I don't know but I'm pretty sure they were dumped from domestic tanks.

We had just one neighbour in the afternoon and they came over at 4pm to check that we were staying the night as they don't like to stay anywhere on their own. We assured them that we would be staying (then as they were in a caravan we took off!!! - only joking)

         These early sunsets (around 4.45pm) are really beautiful and dramatic but SO early!!

The place was very quiet all night and dawn arrived reasonably quietly too, not too many birds around for a big dawn chorus.

We drove a few kms up the road and turned off to have a look at the old town site of Dundas.

 Now totally abandoned, but the shire has re instated the roads and street signs with some tourist info notices. Dundas never really got established as a town, gold was discovered in Norseman just as it was trying to get started and naturally everyone headed there. The road in, and all roads around, were dirt roads in reasonable condition but not so good that we were tempted to travel the entire 'heritage' route into Norseman. A 33kms run following the original Cobb  & Co route. We re-traced our tracks back to the highway and drove up to Norseman, stopping just to buy a paper and then carried on north.

There were two rest areas north of Norseman that we wanted to check out. We stopped at the first one for morning coffee and then went on to the second one for lunch. Both are large areas but close to the highway and the second one is between the highway and the railway. They have large shady areas but we didn't fancy an overnighter in either so we carried on up to Coolgardie - our favourite Goldfields town.

We went into our 'usual' caravan park and checked in for 2 nights. We paid and then went to find a shady spot but were horrified to find that a large company, which has the contract to work on the railway in the area, has set up their 'base camp' in the caravan park. The park is almost full of transportable cabins, around 20 of them! One of the amenities blocks is now completely for gents as there are so many blokes around. As we won't be staying over the weekend we hope that they don't carouse on week nights.

Well we had one night in the caravan park and it was reasonably quiet once they had come in after work - the gravel drive ways make most of the noise. The biggest problem was that the showers ran out of hot water half an hour after they came in!! We hope that everyone realises that Coolgardie Tourist Village caravan park is no longer a viable site, Coolgardie, the town is still well worth a couple of days stopover for travellers, and that this will persist for at least a year!

The weather is absolutely gorgeous - it was a cold night (Southern Cross had 2 degree minimum the night before last!!) but today is a perfect autumn day with clear blue skies and temp around 23degrees! Fingers crossed that it stays like this for another week, for our time in the bush with Ralph & Hanny. That starts tomorrow at Karalee Rocks where we enjoy staying whenever we come out to the Goldfields.
Once again Optus permitting another 'posting' soon, if not, then the next one will be from the comfort of my own recliner, in my own lounge. Aaaahhh!!