Heading East – Hyden and Kalgoorlie

Hyden and Wave Rock

After leaving Perth our first stop was going to be Hyden famous for the large Wave Rock there.  But on the way we had to take in the Tin Horse Highway at Kulin.  We had first been told about the tin horses by a very helpful fellow traveler all the way back in Port Macquarie, fortunately he had not only given us suggestions about places to visit, but he had also written them down.  Which was very handy all these many months later.  The travelling community, be they grey nomads, family adventurers or overseas backpackers are a really fantastic and friendly group.  Across out travels the people we have met had really enriched our journey.

 

The Tin Horses started as a community marketing campaign to promote the annual Kulin Bush Races but has grown into a long roadside gallery of bright, fun art works which our whole car enjoyed.  There are lots and lots of horses but the ones below should give you an idea of what was on offer.

  

On arriving at the township of Hyden we found that they too had been bitten by the art bug with the streets adorned with cool and funky statues.

 

Now which ones are the statues?

 Wave Rock

Wave rock is a short way out of Hyden with the caravan park located only a small distance from the base of the wave.  As you know my boys (especially Mr L) have been avidly following the Are We There Yet Book and here was another time where our journeys intersected.  The eldest son in the book decided to ‘surf the rock’ so of course our cool dudes did likewise.

But they also decided they had to be the rock as well.

 We spent 3 nights here.  We explored the actual Wave Rock area and also nearby walks including the aptly named ‘The Humps’ a short drive from Wave Rock.  For me Wave Rock had a different meaning.  Back in about Grade 2 I had won a prize at school – Rolf’s Walkabout (unlikely to be given as a school prize these days) but the image of Rolf Harris at the base of Wave Rock has stayed with me to this day. It was funny being there in real life compared to my old seventies book with its less than stellar quality photos. 

In my minds eye I can still see Rolf in his safari gear right in front of the rock just here.

We took the walking trail from Wave Rock to the Hippos Yawn – a short walk but apparently enough to make a couple of young walkers ready for a rest.

 

Instead of retracing our steps we walked back over the top of the rock that ends in the wave formation.  The view was spectacular but showed how dry the country here is.  

In our many travels we have come across rock piles everywhere.  The boys had a great time with what we thought was a rock pile city at Cania Gorge – but in contrast it was a mere village.  At the back of Wave Rock we found the rock city metropolis including large buildings and small, some even resembled temples.  Of course we added an building or two.

‘A fitting culmination to the day – the sunset from the top of Wave Rock. 

The Humps and surrounds.

We spent a day exploring some other local walks including ‘The Humps’.  It was a windy day so we tried not to get blown off the top of the rock hills – but it did show the boys how some of the extraordinary shaped rocks had been formed in the absence of rivers and seas.

Ok for a single pile but not a patch on rock pile metropolis.

This obviously took quite a bit of wind to get this shape.

And as usual for our explorations of Western Australia there were flowers scattered through all our walks.

Kalgoorlie and the Superpit

The Superpit

Our biggest reason for stopping in Kalgoorlie was to see the ‘Superpit; and do the mine tour.  We had tried to do a tour of the Tom Price mine in the Pilbara but literally as we arrived at the information centre for the tour we were called to let us know it was cancelled – the boys were rather upset at the time but we had promised them they could come and see the Superpit in Kalgoorlie.  David’s father had also requested a photo of the pit so we felt we had to oblige.  We stayed in Kalgoorlie for 3 nights.  Our first day was all Superpit, the second day we explored the museum and had a lovely afternoon in a beautiful oasis of green in amazing park.

We started the day with the Superpit Tour.  The Superpit is a massive gold mine and it was quite appropriate that most of the gold mined here ended up (after being refined) at the Perth Mint we had seen so recently.  

 
The Superpit is managed by KCGM and the mine is a complex system of underground networks with a history that stretches back over the past 100 years.  At the time of our visit the Superpit (its real name is the Fimiston Open Pit) was Australia's largest open-cut gold mine however in 2016 the Newmont Boddington gold mine  took over this title – it doesn’t stop us claiming we saw the biggest open cut mine in Australia on our trip.

Around 15 million tonnes of rock is moved from the Super Pit every year, KCGM’s operations make it the second-biggest gold producer in the world (second to China). The Super Pit covers more than 26,000 hectares of leases and is made up of around 260 individual mining leases joined together.

 

Each truck on site will use approximately $8 million of fuel and $3 million worth of tyres. Truck tyres can weigh up to five tonnes – this really blew our boys minds, especially the costs of the tyres.

The Blast

The mine blasts three to four times a week we were really lucky as we found out from our tour that it was a blast day that day  After our tour ended we made our way up to the viewing platform and waited for the explosion to happen.  Mr L described it best:

“It just looked like someone shook the ground like a really dirty carpet making all the dust fly up everywhere”.

 

 
As the shovels and trucks at the mine work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It was funny watching all the trucks simultaneously climb up and out of the pit (with full loads of course making sure everything is very economical) and then as soon as the blast is all over back in they all descend – empty of course.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can

Waiting for the blast along side us that day was another family 2 girls in place of our 2 boys.  As the wait was some time we traded pleasantries – turns out they too were from Canberra taking about 8 months to get around Australia – sometimes this big country can seem quite small.

Fortunately there were a couple of spare tyres lying around – great way to pass the time while waiting.

Western Australian Museum – Kalgoorlie/Boulder

After a sensational pizza dinner from the pub down the road (all made and fired on site) we embarked the next day on and excursion of the The Goldfields Museum.  Unlike other museums this one is a not just a single big building but an eclectic collection of very different old buildings:

Yes that rig structure is part of the museum and yes you can go up it.  And yes you should because the view is definitely worth it.

View of Kalgoorlie.

View towards the Superpit which you can see is not far from the centre of Kalgoorlie.

Hammond Park

Finally we spent a lovely afternoon in the most beautiful green oasis of a park.  We had a lovely afternoon tea at the cute kiosk and then took in the sights of this park which included a castle, peacocks, a small lake with its own ducks and a super playground.  It was a lovely end to our stay in Kalgoorlie.

The beginning of the end - Back to Perth

Perth

We returned to Perth and this time were finally reunited with our beloved Cool George caravan.  But at the same time a shadow was hanging over our family - David had to fly back to see his Dad whose illness was progressing steadily (for those following this blog - and over a great deal of time I should say - you may remember we returned to Cowra from Cairns to visit Davids' parents as his father was ill and it was his birthday).  Fortunately, my Mum and her partner had joined us in Perth and Margaret River and after David left, we parked our caravan for an extended stay at one of our best caravan parks ever, Karrinyup Waters Resort.  So this made for a happy group that stayed on in Perth and managed to take in the sights. Firstly those at our back door - did I mention how good our caravan park was?

Mmmm - this one’s too hot, this one’s too cold – this one’s just right.  There is a pool here for any taste.

And there was a billabong with resident cute babies. 

 

 

We explored then local sites of Perth starting with:

Kings Park - we loved Kings Park with its range of activities and flowers (which you can see on the previous blog page):

Swan River - We cruised the Swan river one fine afternoon and through to sunset.

 

Perth Dining – we had a lovely Chinese dinner on the side of the river one night

Fremantle – we met up with some old travelling friends from the Kimberly and had a lovely day in Fremantle visiting the maritime museum and eating fish and chips:

Its hard to believe these kids only met on this trip a handful of times– travelling brings people together quickly.

A visit to Fremantle isn’t complete without a trip through a sub – well maybe not all of us.  

 A couple of Mums might have opted for the coffee option instead.

And a final fish and chip dinner sitting on a Perth beach watching the sun set over the sea for the last time: 

Found some gorgeous looking young men hanging out on this beach.

My mum and her partner headed back to the east coast travelling in luxury on the Indian Pacific.  For us we hopped back in our 4WD with our caravan again in tow – although after David returned from Cowra we knew we had to return home.  We had originally planned another 2 months on the road – but family needed us so we were now homeward bound and heading east.