Blowing a gale when we got up as the latest front to hit us arrived. As the morning wore on the wind intensified so there was mini dust storms and some evil looking clouds building. We headed up to the Kalgoorlie Museum to check it out as we had plenty of time to waste today. We had planned to travel to Norseman and stay the night so we could talk to Cameron for his 19th birthday today meaning it would be a short driving day of only 200Km. During the morning we both managed to talk to Cameron so we went back to the original plan to start the Nullarbor and hopefuly escape some of the weather. Ceduna has a great forecast at the moment high 20’s to low 30’s.

The museum was very interesting and it has a head frame from an old mine out the front you can go up and overlook Kalgoorlie. We managed to get up between wind gusts and nearly got blown off the top of it. They closed it shortly after as they have a 50Kmh wind limit for the lift. The museum has all manner of old mining history and artifacts as well as a vault downstairs where you can view gold nuggets, jewellery and expensive gold bits and bobs all behind bullet proof glass and some mean looking safe doors you walk through. Outside they have some relocated buildings and a replica of Claud DeBernales opulent offices. He was known as the man with the midas touch in WA. The fittings were top notch for the time and there was an amazing chandelier and clock. There is also the British Arms Hotel that was built in 1899 and operated till it was delicenced in 1924. It is reputed to be the narrowest 2 story hotel in the southern hemisphere at only 3.2M width.

Head frame over the museum entrance

On the viewing platform

Superpit spoil in the distance, 0.5K wide, 4Km longCoolgardie Safe, an invention of the mining boom here

No doubt an expensive chandelier, one of two in the room

and clock

Once we came out of the museum it was time to get in the safety of the car so we didn’t get blown away or rained on. Just as we left Kalgoorlie the heavens opened up and the car was being buffeted all the way to Norseman. Unfortunately it was on the side or directly on the front so fuel economy was low and speed was also low. Norseman was our lunch stop but the weather was not great. We went up to a lookout just on the edge of town and quickly decided the BP roadhouse would be a good place for lunch today. They describe their food as ‘chef quality’ in the brochure. We had a huge sausage roll and a coffee each for lunch that repeated on us for the rest of the day!

Nobody will have any idea what this next bit is about except for Radar who they are included for, just skip to the next paragraph everybody else. The next few images are of the Norseman NDB that has the carpark and turning circle directly under the antenna and around the ACU. See cache GC3WA1X for location. Strange that the NDB was sitting on top of the hill?

Lookout name

Building and ACU / carpark

NDB ACU with a turning circle around it

ACU out of the car window

Out of the BP and turn left to hit the Nullarbor, drive till you drop, not really we could have driven much further than we did today but it was getting towards sunset when we hit a roadside stop with a toilet and the next one was about 65Km further on. This one was not to busy and looked OK so we called it a day about 53Km east of Balladonia the place were most of Skylab landed many moons ago.

Tomorrow should see us in SA again or very close to the border depending on how many side trips we do along the way to the cliffs and other attractions near the highway. The fuel economy with the wind behind us now is outstanding. A very strong tail wind and reasonably flat road we are getting about 2-3L/100Km better than normal. There has been a surprising number of small long hills so far, we expected it to be very flat and it may be further on as we have only done less than 1/3 of it so far. The trees are starting to thin out rapidly as we get further on.