Kalgoorlie

The road to Kalgoorlie was long and dry and dusty. And it got progressively darker, from the yellow sand in Hyden to orange to a dark, rich volcanic red in Kalgoorlie.

We kept seeing these bobtail lizards crossing the road, usually (for some strange reason) from north-west to south-east. They were about a foot long, and moved slowly but steadily.

We were using my father's GPS. At first it didn't want to take us on this route at all; I assume it was programmed to avoid unsealed roads where possible. But once we were on it, it seemed happy enough… until lunch time.

We stopped for lunch at Marvel Loch, a strange little mine service town. The houses were all basically air-conditioned tin sheds. We found a park with some public toilets. It was near an "oval" (I use the word with reservation; it was certainly flat and oval-shaped, but the surface was basically gravel), and there were four doors in the toilet block. All were unlabelled. Two on one side were locked. The two on the other side were open; each revealed a toilet and a shower. One did have a women's hygiene product disposal bin, so perhaps the locals knew which was meant to be male vs female, and so didn't need door signs. Laetitia's theory is that the men can have a shower to wash off the beer smell before they go home. Who knows? Anyway.

After lunch we asked the GPS to take us on to Kalgoorlie. It suggested a route slightly shorter than via Southern Cross, so I decided to try its advice, and turned off the main road. Not long after, as the road quality began to drop noticeably (think small shrubs growing up through the surface), we wondered whether that was wise. Sure enough, another kilometre or so on, we came to this:

Give way? To what, exactly? The fence!? What's with the fence across the road?

GPS fail. So we turned around and (steadfastly ignoring the GPS's instructions to "please make a U-turn") headed back to the main road to Southern Cross. Several hours later, we made it to Kalgoorlie, and our friend Stuart's house there.

Stuart is doing up a house. At the moment he has no internal wall panels, just exposed framework, which is not so good for privacy but is definitely good for finding places to store things. (Built-in two-way shelves in every wall!) At least the toilet and bathroom had walls.

Our room at Stuart's

The dining room (will be the kitchen when Stuart's finished)

Nevertheless we received a very warm welcome from Stuart, and from his parents who were also staying with him, helping him with the house.



Stuart took us out to the lookout over the Superpit, which is the huge gold mine in Kalgoorlie, then directed us to an Indian restaurant for dinner. (Bombay Palace on Hannan St. Very nice, a little spicy but not too hot.) We went back to the lookout the next day, where we also met Zoe's parents Ian and Chrissy, who serendipitously happened to be in Kalgoorlie on their way driving around Australia!

 

As it turned out, the Superpit tour was booked out for that day, so instead Stuart showed us around town, especially the earthquake-damaged old buildings in Boulder. We had a delicious lunch at the Hoover Cafe (part of the Palace Hotel in Kalgoorlie). After lunch we went to the Mining Hall of Fame, where we took an underground tour and watched gold being poured.

The tunnels in the mine were rather low. This one's actually quite high, but Stuart is pretty tall. There are many, many levels to this old gold mine. However all but the upper two are flooded.

The working face of the old gold mine, called a stope. The rock is mined off the upper slope, falling to the base from where it is taken away to be crushed and then taken up to the surface. The wooden stumps hold the rock walls apart—still. Some of them are cracked or bent. Look out if they fail!

The melting point of gold is over 1000°C. The fire has to be very hot. That's why the crucible glows, and why the guy doing the pouring wears a thick reflective suit.

 

Afterwards we wandered around the yard looking at the various displays. Stuart and Laetitia had a go at panning for gold. Stuart even found two (very small) flecks of gold!

Wave Rock

When we got to Hyden, we stopped in town for a bit to take some photos. They have a clever history display with statues made of old metal bits, with interesting information about the exploration and settlement of the area. For instance, Wave Rock was originally supposed to be "Hyde's Rock", named for an early settler here. But when the surveyors got back to the office, that became "Hyden Rock", whence comes the name of the town.
 





In fact, Wave Rock proper is really only a small part (down near the ground on the north side) of a very large granite outcrop. At first I was a bit confused; I'm used to the grey granite of south-east Queensland (e.g. at Girraween National Park near Stanthorpe), but in keeping with the generally red soil of the area, Wave Rock is made of quite pink granite.

 

We arrived around 4pm, and checked in to the caravan park, which is right at the base of Wave Rock. After finding our cabin, we went for a walk to check out the wave. This rock became famous when a photo of it appeared in National Geographic in 1967.

Along the top is a low wall (actually a series of walls) that's part of the water supply catchment for the area. The water that runs down off the granite rock, which climbs up quite a long way above the wave feature at the base, is caught by the wall and directed into a dam at the north-western end.

Water catchment retaining walls. The one at the bottom (left in this photo) you can also see in the first photo of the rock above, if you look closely (click photo to enlarge).

Near the dam there are some stairs which go up onto the rock above the wave. So we went for a walk. The sun was dropping towards the horizon and the wind was very cold!

Boulders breaking off

View out to Lake Magic, a salt lake with water (!) and a resort

More boulders

Eventually we decided we were simply too cold, and so we climbed back down and returned to our cabin. But after warming up a little, just on sunset, I took my tripod back out for some low-light photos of the wave. Laetitia came with me, and a good thing too, because not only did she help me by working my camera on the tripod for a few arty shots with me in the frame, she also got to take some of her own, of the moon rising over the wave.

The person you can see down the bottom right of the photo on the left there is another photographer who was there that night. I saw him again several more times the next day.

At dawn the next day, we convinced each other to get up early for some more photos of and on the rock. The wind up there was bitterly cold! But so worth it.

 

After breakfast we packed up and put our things in our hire car (the front of which was by now completely covered in dead bugs, from the previous day's driving). We went first to check out Lake Magic.

You can see lumps of salt crystals forming on everything the water touches

The sand around the edge is literally carpeted with salt!

You can tell how cold the wind was by how much I'm wearing

Then nearby, at the eastern end of the granite outcrop, is a place known as Hippo's Yawn. You can see why!

Then it was time to head off to Kalgoorlie. We chose the unsealed route to Southern Cross because it was significantly shorter.

Not far along the road we stopped briefly to look into Mulka's Cave, which has old aboriginal hand-prints all over the walls.

York, WA

On Sunday we attended the 8am service at the Church of the Epiphany (Anglican) in Mundaring. There were only six locals there (including the clergy; we made it eight). They were very friendly (they even sent us a card, which we received when we got back home). There were no songs or hymns, but we did have communion.

After church we drove on to York. I was interested to see York in particular because I remember really enjoying my time in York, England. (I mean, I knew it was going to be very different! But still, I wanted to have a look.) York, WA is known for its history, which is why Laetitia wanted to go there: it's the oldest regional town in WA, the first place where people settled outside of Perth.

First we checked out the markets and art gallery in the old mill. Because it used to be a working mill, there are four or five floors, each at least 3m high—which makes for a very tall building, and a nice view out the windows on the top story. The gallery was showing an exhibition of photos of fashion, some of which I found very interesting! Then we went to the Avon river, where there's a lovely pedestrian suspension bridge.

In the river we spotted a shopping trolley (yes, even in York, in the middle of nowhere in WA) and, of all things, a plastic chair. There was also a sign warning against swimming in the river, at the risk of catching amoebic meningitis. I wondered what that was, so when I got home I looked it up. Scary stuff!

From there we drove up to the Mt Brown lookout, which gives lovely views over the town and the surrounding countryside. Most of the farmland in that area is devoted to canola.

York, WA (from Mt Brown lookout)

Canola fields (yellow when in flower)

From York, we drove on to Hyden. Along the way I found a few nice spots (the weather being so bright and sunny) to take some photos. The roads all look like this: a row of trees either side, slicing through canola fields (and occasionally a few sheep).

Western Australia!

Friday 17 September 2010 was the last day of term 3. Yay! I made it. The last couple of weeks I was so busy, I was barely keeping up with everything. Just barely.

The very next day, we flew to Perth. We had been a little concerned because we couldn't check in on the web on Friday evening (the first hints of trouble to come for Virgin Blue), but I did manage to check us in early Saturday morning. In any case, it was an uneventful if long and boring flight (just under six hours).

Arriving in Perth, we collected our hire car and drove away from the airport. The sky was overcast and the light therefore a muted grey, and the air cool with a brisk breeze blowing. We knew that Perth was 2 hours behind Brisbane, but of course our bodies and minds hadn't adjusted to that yet. It felt to us like it was dusk and 5pm for several hours straight! We basically had no real idea what time it was.

We stopped briefly in Maylands for some groceries, a few bits of cutlery from a charity store and a couple of falafel kebabs. Then we drove east into the Perth hills. For our first night we were booked into the Travellers Rest Motel in Mundaring. This was a lovely, restful villa spread around a large, landscaped yard.

Part of the villa

Our hire car (the white Barina), parked outside our room

Our room for the night (note the very necessary ugg boots!)

One of the many lovely gardens

After checking in, we drove out to the nearby Mundaring Weir. The road there from the town is quite a long downhill drive. The cold wind was really starting to pick up by now, and we were glad to have our coats. We found some very pretty wildflowers beside the road and around the weir.

Eventually the cold (and our tiredness, remember the two hour time difference!) meant we returned to our room for a simple dinner of 2-minute noodles and an early (by Perth time) night.

Quilt Extravaganza

Today Laetitia took me to a quilt show in Cleveland. It was held at the Redland Performing Arts Centre (in the same place, I think, as my Senior Dinner back in 1991). Some of the quilts were amazing—intricate details, creative ideas, all kinds of sizes and patterns. My personal favourite was one made by a mum for her son. It had these fantastic comic strips with the boy being a hero, along with exciting designs of space travel, dragons, and fishing (apparently the five-year-old boy likes going fishing).

But an additional highlight of the day for me was seeing there an old English teacher from high school, Anne Green. (Hmm, and here I need a Shakespearean quote about teachers or teaching. Ideas?)

Reflections on Easterfest 2010

Laetitia took me to Easterfest this year. She's a regular goer, since before it changed its name, and has been wanting to take me along for years. This year I finally let her take me along.

We camped with friends from Mackay, in a borrowed tent. Well, when I say “we camped”, actually only Laetitia camped in the tent. I found on the first night that I was getting an allergic reaction to something in the tent, so I spent the nights in the car instead. But it was good to be in the midst of hundreds of tents, with many friends around. I especially enjoyed the discovery directly across from us of the tent of Benoir (I hope that spelling's right), one of the leaders on the year 9 camp I went to not long before Easter!

I also enjoyed running into so many friends walking around at Easterfest—old friends, new friends and students. With special thanks to Lily for the warm welcoming greeting within barely a minute of entering the gate!

But the point of Easterfest is the music, so I'd better say something about that, hey?

First let me start with what I didn't like: Too much noise without musicality, mostly from one tent in particular. But there were plenty of very good alternatives. I liked Sons of Korah, of course, and Newsboys on the main stage (even though there's only one Aussie left, and he's apparently not an original member either). Also enjoyed some of the other groups on the main stage (though not all of them). But I think my favourites were the “smaller” (lesser-known?) artists in venues like the YWAM Chai Circle, with its lovely relaxed atmosphere and intimate setting, and the jazz in the Hammered Silver tent. Bel Morrison and her band made some awesome music in the YWAM tent—and I'm not just saying that because she's my friend! They played really well together, with delicacy and musicality and, well, just actually listening to each other and playing as a group instead of trying to drown each other out like so many others.

I also enjoyed sessions by Jeff Crabtree and Steve Grace in the Vision Arena. Steve Grace in particular inspired me to think quite differently about how to be generous with some of my gifts.

So, overall, a positive experience, but I'm still not sure I want to go back next year. Cold, crowds, and uncomfortable nights are less than enticing.

It's been a while… Sorry.

I've been so busy. And I haven't written here for ages. But my head is buzzing with ideas—not just for here, but also for my photography blog. And although I'm still vacillating, I think I really do want to sell my photos.

School has been … full-on. I'm now teaching year 12 Physics (in addition to the year 11 class) instead of year 7 PE. Which I think is an improvement! I'm enjoying the rotation through the classes in year 10 Science; I'm getting to know all of the year 10s (well, three classes so far, and the last class next term).

I've also enjoyed being a leader on a Scripture Union camp over the winter holidays. And last weekend Laetitia and I went up to Mackay for the Student Festival of Fashion—and to see old friends. Catching Bel Morrison at our church there was a special surprise!

Should I write more detailed posts about any of these? Let me know…