16 March 2000
Left Albany this morning after putting ute through car wash to wash off salt spray picked up yesterday.
Headed for Esperance along direct route through Ravensthorpe. Changed mind and decided instead to go to Ravensthorpe via inland route through Stirling Ranges. Good decision. Driving north, you suddenly see these majestic ranges faintly in the distance as you come over a hill about 60 kms out from Albany. Once having sighted them, you watch them as they slowly come closer and closer until you are among them. Today they were high, dark and brooding, with cloud scattered around and below their tops. They do not appear to be a very big range, but they are certainly spectacular. Once through them we drove on to Ongerup, where we had some breakfast. We found out two interesting things at Ongerup. Firstly, the word or sound we write as "up" means, in the local aboriginal dialect, "water", or something to do with water. And the word for "grey kangaroo" in the same local dialect is "yonger". So if there was a place or word called "Yongerup" it would mean "watering place of the grey kangaroo" or "the watering place where you can find the grey kangaroo". So all the place names ending in "up" (which only occur around here) mean places having something to do with water. The second thing we found out was that we couldn't get through to Esperance from Ravensthorpe because the road (National Highway No 1, mind you - goes all the way round Australia) is washed out 40 kms west of Esperance. Unbelievable, isn't it? We only found out about this by chance when the local TyrePower dealer, who just happened to be walking by, asked where we were headed. He told us about the road closure outside Esperance and said we would have to go north from Ongerup to Merriden, and then east to Kalgoorlie (where we heading to after Esperance, anyway). So decided to go that way (having no other choice) and see Kalgoorlie and then Esperance, rather than the other way round. As you can imagine, wouldn't have been a happy chappie to have got to within 40 kms of Esperance and then found out we had to back-track 320 kms. So another adaptation of plans to circumstances and off we went.
Country between Ongerup and Merriden consists of rolling hills and appears to be mainly wheat, sheep and cattle country. A considerable amount of it seems to be quite poor, with what appear to be many large, shallow salt lakes and salt marshes - both naturally occurring and man-induced. The towns and villages we passed through (Pingrup, Lake Grace, Kulin, Kondinin, South Kumminin, Narembeen) on the way to Merriden, where we had some lunch, are all quiet rural backwaters. Merriden is the regional centre and is considerably larger and more lively than the others.
From Merriden we headed towards Kalgoorlie - 336 kms to the east. This region is known as the goldfields area and the road passes through the major historic towns of Southern Cross and Coolgardie before reaching Kalgoorlie. Southern Cross is a fairly large town with a number of beautiful old buildings. Coolgardie (which I thought would be reasonably large, and where we are spending the night) is actually quite small - much smaller than Southern Cross. But the old buildings are just glorious. One looks as is if it has been lifted straight out of Dodge City in the American West. We ran into torrential rain about 100 kms from Coolgardie which continued on and off all the way in.
Had a lovely home-cooked meal in the pub: lamb chops, mashed potato, peas, corn, carrots, cabbage and gravy. Lovely. And all the while a storm with thunder, lightning and heavy rain was raging outside. One clap of thunder was so close it made everyone in the place jump. The lady in the motel where we are staying was saying the weather has been really weird here lately with clear, sunny, cloudless mornings and then a build-up of cloud followed by thunderstorms in the afternoons. She also said the road into Esperance from this side too is closed to cars but open to trucks and 4WD's. Maybe it won't be open to anybody after the rain we had this afternoon and tonight. Just have to wait and see.
Tomorrow morning will have a good look round Coolgardie (hope weather and light OK), and then go on to Kalgoorlie - only 40 kms away. From Kalgoorlie will turn south to Norseman and Esperance. See how far we get.