A further 2 1/2 hour drive up the highway to a small historic town, Leanora and the nearby awesome Ghost town of Gwalia. Funfact here, Herbert Hoover the 31st president of the USA was a mining engineer and at 23 he was the first manager of the Gwalia mine in 1897, he built the managers home, now named Hoover House, a B&B, but you can walk through the museum and home for free, (we always leave a donation). The mine is still in use and is now open cut, and you can camp in the Ghost town. We met some great “locals”, ex Sunshine Coasters, who love the quiet life in the goldfields. We had the place to ourselves, we are a month ahead of the tourist and prospectors season..yay!
It was a 11 hour day-outing, but couldn’t miss Englishman Antony Gormley’s “Inside Australia” sculptures on Lake Ballard on the way back. It was 50km off the highway, 1/2 of which was dirt. The 51 sculptures represent the inside dimensions of 51 residents from the nearest town of Menzies. Again, we could have camped by the lake..free.
Our drive to the south coast took us through Coolgardie, and exploring the high street and pioneer cemetery we found the Grave of Ernest Giles, died aged 62, the explorer who first crossed and named the Gibson Desert. We learnt a lot about him when travelling through Central Australia last year.
Old National Bank in Coolgardie, the first and original Gold Rush town.
We stayed a few nights in a very small village named Grasspatch. It was a community run caravan park of 8 sites, very well kept. Our neighbours were farmers from the Sunshine Coast too. From here we drove the 50 km to Mt Ridley, last 5km 4WD only. Hiked the granite Mt for a great view over flat wheat fields dotted with salt lakes, surfed wave rock, found an ancient historic well, and a lonely set of Graves on the way home. Again we had ghe mountain to ourselves.
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