Westonia to Coolgardie Sunday 24th March, 2019

This morning was cool and sunny. We were up promptly when the alarm went off and enjoyed a relatively brief time with cups of tea and reading our iPads before starting to get ready. We moved off just after 9:00 to do our chores of dumping tanks and filling up with fresh water at the caravan park. The caretaker there was very friendly and hadn’t heard that a $2.00 donation was required, but took the money anyway. We were impressed with the small and very tidy caravan park.

We parked down the street close to the museum and excellent, clean public toilets. Stephen found a seat outside the tavern to wait for the museum to open and I went to a small cafe for an very nice coffee.

The museum had the usual experience of being in a mine, with the sounds and sensation of blasting, but was also home to an impressive collection of artefacts from earlier times. It included the opportunity to experience writing with a pen and ink, sadly we are old enough to remember learning to write this way in school and how messy it can be with small children, ink bottles and nibs that get clogged up.

So glad fountain pens were invented, then discarded for ball points.

The museum included life like figures in ‘rooms’ depicting life in the early days of European settlement in Australia. So lifelike that we sometimes did a double take, and checked to make sure.

The only thing missing was a history of the town, apart from a very heavy and thick book for $55.00. We didn’t buy it.

We headed out of town and drove pretty much straight to Coolgardie, with a break for lunch in a bush setting. The road was mostly very bumpy, but there were an impressive number of very long passing lanes where the roadwork was newish. We shared the driving, doing about half each in four stages. Arriving at around 5:00 pm. After happy hour of coke and nibbles we went for a short walk. I wanted to find the dump point and water tap. Unfortunately there was no water coming out of the taps, and this was confirmed by someone else who had been in this spot a month ago when the taps had flowed. We are not sure why.

Stephen tried out the automatics toilet, which entertained him with music whilst he was there.

This is a free camping area just a block away from the caravan park. There are about four caravans here, plus us. Being on one side we have a feeling of privacy.

We ate leftovers again, will they never end…

We had a FaceTime session with Matt and went through the description of his activities for the week from an email sent by the house supervisor. He seemed not that impressed, but it certainly makes a change from droning on about ourselves. Anyway, it was lovely to see him and I think he was glad to see us, especially as he gets to press the button finishing the call.