Wednesday 3rd to Friday 5th July, 2025

We ended up staying an extra hour in Latham. We were driving down the street trying to find the beginning of a nature walk when we spoke to a local. She thought we were looking for wildflowers, though we knew it was much too early, but she ended up inviting us to her property. She and her husband bought the Latham School and have been converting it into a home, with lots of outbuildings.

She started with the outbuildings, which had their roofs torn off in the cyclone a few years ago. they have kept some things, such as the toilets, playground and basketball court, and built a couple of inviting outdoor areas. But, it was when we walked into the house that we were really impressed. They have converted three classrooms into a kitchen/dining room, loungeroom and bedroom. The living areas are gorgeous, huge, with modern fixtures and fittings, but also very comfortable and homely. I could have moved in.

She told us stories about her past, it turns out she renovated a couple of old hotels in Kalgoorlie, so has experience with doing up old buildings. Of course, they hire workmen, but the design and ideas come from her. She told us about her six children, sadly her two youngest have died, and her life with a drunken husband, who she left, and her life raising the children. Maureen is her name, a tiny woman, quite amazing.

We needed to have an overnight on power as we weren’t getting enough solar to really recharge the batteries, and had decided on Dalwallinu. By the time we arrived there it was raining and very cold and windy, so we did a minimum of outside setting up and then had lunch.

Stephen did some research on the town and when we were leaving we dropped by the cemetary to visit the grave of a famous builder and farmer. It was sunny at that time, but still very cold. I’m hoping he’ll fill you in more about the person in the comments.

For our last night we headed towards the Wannamal Rest Area. On the way we stopped in at the Miling General Store and enjoyed hot drinks and talking with Maud, who is a French backpacker.

We asked her about the fish in the aquarium, they were tiny and very colourful and lively, I thought they might not be real. However, she immediately gave Stephen some fish food, which he sprinkled on the water and made them even more lively than they had been before. She came and chatted with us when she was free of other customers. Turns out it was her last day in the job and she was then heading off to Queensland to do some travelling with her mother.

From Miling we travelled to Moora, coming into the town a different way from our usual entry. We had thought there was only one supermarket and one cafe, but no, there is a French restaurant, a Foodworks which has a cafe, and another cafe in a sidestreet. We’ve stayed at the free overnight camping a couple of times, but things tend to be closed in the evenings, so that is perhaps why we hadn’t explore more of the town. We had a meal at the hotel once when we were travelling with Marie and Geoff.

Anyway, we had a beautiful lentil soup at the French restaurant before going to the Foodworks for food for our evening meal. We then wandered around the town a bit and had our afternoon tea at the CumQuat Mae cafe.

Then on to Wannamal. There are no wildflowers at this time of the year and the little stream was dry, so it wasn’t as pretty as usual. However, there are some good camping spaces and the flushing toilets make for a comfortable overnight.

Of course, it was necessary to visit the Bakehous in Bindoon on our way through. They have soup in winter, so we could make a comparison with the French cafe’s soup. Not as good, but we were still glad of it. We also bought one of their nice soughdough loaves and resisted the cakes.

Rather than take the main road back to the city we took the Chittering Valley Road through to Bullsbrook. It’s so beautiful in that region in winter. At Bullsbrook we had a icecream, a bit of a strange choice on a cold day, but refreshing. Stephen reminded me that we had gone to an airshow with Marie, Geoff, Robyne and Chris one year, and had coffee at the Cheques Hotel first. I wonder if anyone else remembers this, I certainly don’t.

We have come home a bit early as it looked like Saturday would be rain free, with Sunday and Monday being very wet, especially Monday, which was our original day to arrive home. It seemed very cold in the house when we arrived, but on the whole it feels warmer here than our last few days and nights on the road.