Click here for Day 4 Map - actual
Last night we had an excellent steak at the Norseman Motel but our undoing was not checking the bottled beer prices first which would make even The Establishment in Sydney blush! Fell in with two English guys driving a new horse float back from Sydney to Perth - we had passed them 3 times on the road during the day and half suspected what they might actually have thought of us! Anyway a real laugh even if we spent way too much ;-)
Steve driving - SJ awake at 04:00 (06:00 NSW time) and SG around 05:00 and on the move again up the A94 Coolgardie-Esperance Highway at 05:55 having first topped-up at the adjacent Norseman BP. Taking in a bit of a detour today to see the ‘Super Pit’ at Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Travel via Kambalda West (07:10, 126 kms) on the A94 arriving at Boulder (07:41, 126 kms) and Kalgoorlie (07:48, 184 kms) - somehow found the infamous Hay Street and unsurprisingly not a lot happening at this time in the morning and sadly unable to wait around for the afternoon tours ;-)
Simon driving - breakfast followed by a brief walk around town (some amazing examples of original goldfield buildings) before back into the car to find the Super Pit – a ‘must see’ and hard to do justice to the scale of it in pictures or words: 3.8 kilometres long, 1.35km wide and will eventually go down to a depth of more than 500m! Huge loaders filling massive trucks that like lines of ants work their way up & down the pit – the scale is extraordinary + see link to satellite pic!
Eventually leave ‘Kal’ at 09:15 on the Great Eastern Highway (A94) which will take us all the way into Perth. See only our second & final (live) kangaroo today (amazing considering distance travelled!) as well as Triple Road Trains (interesting overtaking these!) and large flocks of Galahs! For most of the way the road runs alongside Goldfields Water Supply Scheme pipeline - basically the water supply for Kalgoorlie that runs some 530 kms (330 miles) from Mundaring Weir near Perth. Built by an amazing man called CY O'Connor.
Coolgardie at 09:41 (238 kms), Yellowdine at 11:06 (392 kms) and Ghooli (!) at 11:16 (412 kms) before stopping for the final top up + lunch (Steve has a Desperate Dan style cow burger!) at the Caltex Roadhouse in Southern Cross at 11:25 (420 kms).
Steve driving – depart Southern Cross at 12:00 and drive through the start of the Wheat Belt, vast fields with crops starting to sprout green shoots. Drivers after Norseman this morning now less willing to give us the laconic ‘bush wave’, assumption is less shared experience + back in civilisation! Bodallin at 12:28 (472 kms), cross ‘No 1 Rabbit Proof Fence’ at 507 kms, Merredin at 13:05 (532 kms), Kellerberrin at 13:37 (588 kms) before changing drivers Tammin at 13:50 (611 kms).
Simon driving – ‘the final push’ – pass ‘No 2 Rabbit Proof Fence’ at 631 kms, Meckering (1968 earthquake fault line infamy), Northam at 14:39 (688 kms + birthplace of Kim’s Dad) and Mundaring at 15:21 (757 kms). Over the Darling Range's and on descending get our first sighting of Perth City in the distance from Greenmount Hill at 15:29 (767 kms). Kick ourselves for not having taken group pic besides one of the Perth road signs!
We hit the Perth outskirts just before 16:00 and just as peak hour is starting – very odd experience after being pretty much the only car on the road t suddenly being surrounded by hundreds of cars in a hurry!
In an effort to clean-up the car a tad (first impressions and all that) we arrive at a car wash centre at the Kingsway shopping centre at 16:10 (799 kms) and my driving duties are finally done without any incident! Out attempts to wash the car aren’t that great (only slightly better than it was as the red dust just seems to stick to the car!) and a pity that our earlier phone attempts to find a car detailer had not worked out as would be good to have delivered the car as it was when Steve drove out of the dealers (Alto, Artarmon) last Friday afternoon – seems like 8 months ago!
Steve driving – we finally arrive at Steve & Kim’s place in Connolly around 17:30 after 815.4 kms for the day – excellent to arrive at last and in one piece! Last of the boring old stats for the record: fuel used on last day just 8.1 litres per 100 kms with an average speed of 88 kms p/hour over 815 kms.
Final speedo reading (Connolly, WA) was 6,535 kms making a total of exactly 4,040 kms (2,510 miles) since leaving St Ives Chase (NSW) last Saturday morning!
Road kill count: Roo’s: 4 / Fox: 1 / Misc: 4 / Birds: 3.
Conclusion & round-up to follow as both totally knackered now + need a day or two for reflection… ;-)
