Time for a Change of Scenery – Inland Road Trip

We decided that it was time for a change of scenery. Somewhere that wasn’t near the ocean. Ideally we would have popped home to Melbourne for a visit with family and friends, but we were not confident that we’d be let back in to the state. The WA Premier has been notoriously trigger happy with border closures.

So a West Australian road trip it was. We hired a van for a week and ended up covering 2598 kilometres over 6 days and 5 nights, staying either at free campsites (Kwolyin, Kalgoorlie, Lake Ballard) or caravan parks (Hyden, Mount Magnet).

The first part of the trip east from Perth took us through the heart of the wheatbelt region. Fields and fields of wheat lined the roads, and we could see all the different harvesting machinery in the paddocks. We also drove past some of the original Rabbit Proof Fence.

York

Rabbit Proof Fence

Wave Rock, Hyden

The small town of Hyden is famous for its main attraction; Wave Rock. Caused by weathering and water erosion over millions and millions of years, this 110 metre long and 15 metre high multi-coloured granite cliff is shaped remarkably like a huge wave about to crash onto the bush. It’s a pretty cool sight.

We took photos in the afternoon, and Matt went back to try for some night sky photos, but the almost full moon meant that it wasn’t quite dark enough for the proper effect.

Mulka’s Cave and The Humps, Hyden

Other things to see in Hyden are Mulka’s Cave and The Humps. We did both the circuit walks here and it was pretty hot. Swarms of flies bothered us constantly and I was annoyed at myself for leaving our head nets on the boat.

Kalgoorlie

Then we headed north to Kalgoorlie and into the Goldfields region. I’d never been to Kalgoorlie and was fascinated to finally be there. It was hot, dry and dusty. The biggest city in the Australian outback, Kalgoorlie is touted as a vibrant mix of gold rush history, grand colonial buildings and immense mining operations. It certainly is all of these, with the long main street filled with beautiful old heritage buildings, lots of pubs and even one of the worlds oldest working brothels.

But it is the Super Pit which really dominates the town. At 3.5 kilometres long and 1.5 kilometres wide, it is one of the world’s largest open cut mines and produces 900,000 ounces of gold a year. We ventured up to the Super Pit Lookout for an incredible view down into the mine, but unfortunately didn’t get to witness any blasting.

The next day we went on the Super Pit bus tour and were driven right into and around the mining and milling operations. It was incredible to see the sheer size of the ginormous dump trucks close up. They had looked like toy trucks from way up at the lookout, but were anything but. The scale of the mining operation is hard to comprehend and the milling and extraction process mind boggling complicated. It was a very interesting insight into modern day gold mining.

Lake Ballard

Lake Ballard is home to an art installation in the middle of a salt lake. Sound bizzare?  It sure was, but very beautiful too. The ‘Inside Australia’ installation by sculptor Antony Gormley comprises 51 metal statues spread over roughly 10 square kilometres of the lake’s surface. The sculptures are derived from laser scans of residents of the nearby town of Menzies, and Gormley sourced local raw metals to create an alloy to make the sculptures from.

The lake is a starkly beautiful place, with the shimmering expanse of white salt lake contrasting with the red rocks and blue, blue sky. Networks of footprints connect the sculptures, making a pattern of tracks over the surface of the lake.

It was very hot and there was an incredible number of flies, so we didn’t walk the whole installation, just wandered out to the closest few. Matt took photos at sunset and then again at sunrise at 4.30am, capturing the different effects of light on the lake.

Mount Magnet

From Lake Ballard we drove north through Gwalia Ghost Town, Leonora and Leinster, before heading west to Mount Magnet for the night. We followed the Mount Magnet Tourist Drive as far as we could in our non 4WD, ending up at The Granites, a collection of rocky outcrops with an escarpment about 15 metres high. Heading back at sunset, Matt took some gorgeous night sky pictures.

And then it was time to head south, back to Fremantle. We were passing right through the Goldfields region and regularly had to pull over for road trains carrying immense pieces of machinery. They would travel in a convoy with a lead car warning of the oversize load ahead, giving you time to pull right off the road as these road trains often took up the complete width of the road. It was quite a spectacle.

The goldfields scenery gave way back to the wheatfields as we headed south into Perth and Fremantle. We had driven almost 2600 kilometres over six days. It had been a good break from life on the boat and we had experienced another whole part of the state.

Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn’t mean to make.

Angela N Blount