We left Falcon at 9am and arrived home in Kalgoorlie at 6pm. The nine-hour journey was much better than the 13-hour detour we had to endure on the way out because of the highway closure.
I took some back roads this morning via Boddington, Pingelly, Brookton, Corrigin and Narembeen to Merredin. It might have been a little further but wasn’t much longer in time considering we had quite a few stops.
Ah, the joys of travelling with children. Why is it they need a toilet break 10 minutes after you’ve stopped for everyone to relieve themselves?
I’m fond of the Western Australian Wheatbelt. There are numerous towns about 70km apart from each other. Each glows with a sense of community. They have their own shires, swimming pools, schools, hotels, shops, health centres and (in most cases) banks.
There would be worse fates than retiring to one of those little towns.
Juliet and I couldn’t get over the arrogant affluence of Mandurah. It was rated one of the most expensive cities in Australia recently. That made page 11 of one local paper and didn’t get reported in the other.
A vacant block of land next to our rented holiday home was on the market for $690,000!
Despite our stay coinciding with the January holidays, I’d say half the houses in that area were vacant. I think they are mostly holiday homes for rich people in Perth, with some being speculative investment properties.
Houses and land there are certainly expensive by any standard. Rentals however, are quite reasonable, probably due to the large number of vacant homes.
The kids tried to convince me to throw in my job and move to Mandurah. If Juliet and I both worked we could afford to live there, but it’s not on my radar. January is great, but the charm would soon evaporate I think if I had to commute 45 minutes to work or more on a rainy winter’s day.
Getting back to the drive home, Boddington is a lovely place. It reminded me of Tallangatta and Corryong in North East Victoria. The Hotham River runs through it, there’s a sense of heritage and the town has character.
I hope that isn’t lost when the new gold mine goes ahead.
There’s a weir on the river, which looked very attractive when we stopped there for morning tea, but like the river in York a sign prohibited swimming, this time without explanation.
In York, a sign warns against fertiliser run-off in the water. At Boddington the river looked clear and inviting.
I’m struck how Victorians take clean water and rivers for granted. I don’t know of any hill-country freshwater streams in WA where it’s safe to swim. Perhaps there are some around Albany.
On the back-road drive through the Wheatbelt we made a toilet stop in Narembeen, 75km south of Merredin.
The toilet block was painted with a Pokemon mural, which drew Jim’s eye for 10 minutes and made his day. While admiring it with him I noticed a plaque on the building, which said it was erected by the local roads board and opened by AW Latham JP in 1958.
Rewind 50 years and picture the gathering. I’m sure the town dignitaries were delighted to introduce a public convenience. But if I was AW Latham I would prefer to be remembered for other things than opening a dunny!
