Westonia to Perth

We awoke to the sound of mine trucks that we had heard all night long. Surmising that the mine must be nearby, we decided to go have a look. It was very interesting as they had a walkway up to the top of the mine and you could look into the deep mine pit. The trucks were massive, but as they snaked their way down the mine road they looked so small at the end. The trucks seem to work 24 hours a day and make bigger and bigger pits. I imagine one truck is hauling out in one 15 minute load what a miner would have done in a day. On one side of our view was the mine, and the vast open hole into the earths crust and the other vista was of untouched bush just as the early

explores saw. It was a challenging difference.

From Westonia we took the back roads up north to the main shire road that took us through large wheat fields and small wheat towns. We got to Mukinbuddin and saw our old Herbie car still in residence to the entrance of town, but the main street seems even more desolate than before. There was not a single shop or café open, and the place had a very old tired feel about it.

The town is on the "Wheatbelt Way" self-drive trail which takes you on an interpreted journey via 9 communities. These are Dowerin, Wyalkatchem, Koorda, Bencubbin, Beacon, Westonia, Mukinbudin, Nungarin and Trayning. It highlights sites (mainly rocks and settler museums), natural attractions and history/heritage sites while offering opportunities to experience the unique wheat belt communities and landscapes.

Mukinbudin has two places of interest which are Beringbooding Rock and Weira Reserve. The road then took us to Bencubbin and turned south to Trayning. The quality of the wheat was clearly getting better and by the time we got to Wyalkatchem it was much more robust and sturdy. We stopped for a look around and got fuel from the local

petrol station. In front of us were two teenagers heading out on motor bikes determined to have fun. I just hope they did not come off the scramblers at too high a speed.

At Northam we got some lunch ingredients and had a very pleasant lunch in the park by the river. Having been to Northam a few times for canoe races, it was interesting to see the non river side of the town. It is full of old buildings and amazingly they have a marker that shows the last 100 years flood mark, It is very high and explains why there are no buildings on the river bank and all the town is build halfway up the hill. Once flooded everyone learnt their lesson. No floodway buildings here.

We headed back to Perth on the Great Eastern Highway and with care as its a double demerit weekend, and the police would love to catch a speeding car.

And so ends another amazing trip into the western Australian outback. Some statistics for this trip: we did 2,222 km in four days, ate two full packets of biscuits, got pucked by a farm goat (twice!! and Tracy has the bruises to show for it) and drove 124km without seeing a single human or car. This trip in the goldfields was full of open roads, blue skies abandoned mine sites, ghost towns, scrub vegetation and silence. The scale and hardship of living in place like this only becomes apparent once you actually get out and see that

without water and shelter life can be harsh, even with a hand full of gold. Its clear that when things are hard you can't eat a mineral.