June 29th

We have enjoyed  a lovely day in Leonora, camped in the local camping park. Washing of clothes and 'on tap' showers have been the real bonus. We have spent several hours today visiting Lisa Brown who is John's cousin and her partner Tony Pilkington who live here in Leonora. Lisa and Tony have a Gold Prospecting Business which we found very interesting, mainly because we know nothing of mining for a career or a living. The area is still rich in gold with several large mines still operating.

Our travelling companions have now gone down to Perth for some different activities. We will meet again in about 3 weeks time. By then we will be ready to make our way east again.

After lunch we drove around Leonora and visited the Gwalia Mining museum. It is a fun place to walk around because of all the old Miners cottages which you are free to walk through. Miners lived a very hard life with high summer temperatures and cold nights during the winter. The homes were very basic with iron or tin outside walls and hessian walls inside. There was little furniture and no comforts to ward off hot or cold weather. Toilet and bathroom facilities were very basic.

Our new tyre will arrive in Leonora tomorrow morning. After taking delivery of this we plan to head north for some more explorations of new places. It is unusual for us to not have definite plans but it will be fun seeing some  new areas within this huge state.

Front door of Pink Miner's Cottage

Typical wood stove from the early mining era.

June 28th
On the main road at 8.30 am. These time changes are really upsetting our sleep patterns!
We had a wonderful camping spot amongst Black Oak trees which have very tiny nuts of 1 cm in size compared with the nuts from the Desert Oaks which are about 6-7 cm long. Both trees belong to the Causerina family of trees.

This morning we have been lucky enough to find a Kings Mills mallee tree in bloom with large yellow-cream flowers. The nuts are bright yellow-orange in colour.

We passed by Cosmo Newbury, an Aboriginal settlement which was recently featured on TV.

A track led us off road to visit the Bullrush Rockhole. It was a pretty area of red rocks and of course a few bull rushes growing at the edge of the rock hole.
Next visit was to Giles Breakaway, a huge and wide area of rocky cliffs with many coloured rocks. Two more rock holes for the day were Bubbles rockhole and Deba Gnamma hole.

Laverton is a small mining township with basic facilities. 124 km further south is Leonora which is also a mining town. We are camped in the local camping park for tonight. We walked down to a Pub for a meal. Many of the campers are here because of their enthusiasm for gold prospecting.

Kings Mills mallee buds and blooms

Silver Cassia

Bullrush Rockhole

Trivia for the day is the fact that the Great Victoria Desert (which we have been travelling across) is the largest desert in Australia and the 7th largest desert in the world.

June 27th

Another wide blue sky. The road was excellent and there was a team of men and machines working on it maybe even preparing the surface for bitumen. Desert Poplars and Mulga trees line the road as we travel toward Tjukayirla where there is a very good road house albeit quite expensive. This is to be expected in such a remote place.

There were many points to stop for today. The first after the Roadhouse was a Lone Desert Kurrajong tree…’The Kurrajong Sentinal’.

Paine and Barclay were two explorers who travelled the area in the first part of last century. We stopped at a memorial cairn which recognises their journey. They named the Pikul Rockholes in 1931. The breakaway had several overhanging ledges which were quite ‘cave’ like and contained some aboriginal art work. It is impossible to imagine how old it is.

Lunch time brought us to the Eurothurra rockholes which gave us a wide view to enjoy. It is very easy to walk by the rockholes without seeing them. They are simply ‘holes in the rocks’.

The flowers today have been lovely. We came upon one patch which looked like snow…an area covered in white paper daisies.

Mid afternoon we actually drove through the NW corner of the Yeo Nature Reserve. This has special meaning for us as our eldest grandson has been named after the Surveyor who named this area….. John Yeo’s great great grandfather.

Tonight we are camped in a huge forest of Black Oaks. The area is called ‘The Pines’ although the Oaks are actually ‘Casuarinas’ and not ‘Pines’. We have a camp fire which is enjoyable on a cool night.

Eurothurra rockholes

Paper daisies like snow in the desert

June 26^th

We woke to a beautiful clear sky but what is the time?? There have been several time changes along the way as we have crossed borders and here in the east of WA there is a separate time to operate from.

A short while after leaving camp we realised that we were driving on the northern section of the HANN Track. The section that follows the Great Central Road.  Hann was an explorer of note and we are following a number of interesting points along his route. . Some times we drove on the old highway and some times we drove on very faint tracks to visit water holes. It is amazing how many water holes there are. They must have been an asset for Aboriginals in the area as well as to explorers travelling this way.

Mulga or Acacia Aneura

White Emu Bush

Yowalga Rockhole

Acacia Aneura or Mulga is very common. We lunched amongst a sparse
forest and now we are camped amongst a similar forest of Acacias. We set up camp early so washing could be hung and dried and we have all had time to catch up on notes etc. John & I will cook roast lamb for dinner. The flies are very nasty so dinner will be late. Today I finished the last meusli bar of a tasty box of bars my sister in law, Joan, had made for me. They were much less sweet, thankyou Joan.

June 25th
 The wind last night blew in gusts through the desert oaks, in fact the morning was quite cold.
A couple of dingoes were circling our camp..no doubt waiting for us to go so they could check the area for food scraps. A disappointing wait for them!

The corrugations continued, on the Great Central Road, until we crossed the border into Western Australia.. The road improved markedly and made for much 

more enjoyable driving. We were able to enjoy the beautiful Petermann ranges and the Schwerin Crescent of hills.  The bush consisted of a wonderful variety of growth Mallee trees, Acacias, Grevillias, Desert bloodwoods , Ghost gums and one lone Currajong tree, to mention a few. The variety of landscape was remarkable with wide flat areas and low hills as we travelled the seemingly never ending road with an occasional mirage.

We called at the Warburton Roadhouse and Art gallery. Some of the art which has been done by Aboriginal artists is quite innovative. There were paintings, huge glass bowls, basketry and huge felted wall hangings with wonderful colours.

 We camped a little way out of Warburton in the mulgas by the roadside.

Len Beadell's Ghost Gum with Petermann Ranges in background

Great Central Road meets the horizon

June 24th

The morning was quite cool as we left the foothills of Mt Connor. I was not prepared, so early in the day, for the 13 kms of severe corrugations. The bitumen felt so smooth as we drove the Lasseters Highway to Curtain Springs and on to Yulara.

Desert Oaks are standing tall across the surrounding dry and stressed country.

Curtain Springs Road House was very busy with several buses arriving before us. The aviary of parrots was interesting but I really don’t care for birds in cages. However we were able to get a really close look at the Princess Alexandra parrot with its beautiful soft pastel colours and very long tail. So sad to see such a beautiful bird unable to fly free.

Yulara is a busy resort with roads and buildings in unexpected places..a very modern design to blend with the ‘desert’ scenery. We stocked up on goods at IGA and Shell.

 Off we went on the bitumen road to see the Olgas. What an amazing formation of sedimentary rocks. Lots of different pebbles and stones show through the layers…pebbles which were once washed by a river. John walked for awhile through the rocks while I stayed and tried to draw these wonderful icons.

We planned to camp at the Docker River Campsite. It was a long way on an extremely corrugated road. We were quite late arriving. Left overs from last night made for an easy dinner. The campsite is set among an extensive stand of Desert Oaks. Dingoes howled as we sat by another warm campfire. Another day of fun and enjoyment in the Outback of this great land of ours.

A quick 'shot' of Uluru as we were driving

HE & ME with the Olgas in the background

June 23^rd

Camped near De Rose Hill and quite close to Stuart Highway among the Mulga trees. Luckily we were not disturbed by traffic. John found a delightful example of a Harlequin Mistletoe in Bloom. Mistletoes plants love to grow on Mulga trees.

We crossed the border into the Northern Territory and immediately took a turn westward along Mulga Park Road. It was wide, red and corrugated. It was lined with a bush of Mulga trees. Many cattle were suffering from lack of fresh grass. A mob of young camels crossed the road ..it was our first sighting of these odd looking animals. It is a pretty area with mauve/purple hills in the distance.

Generally the sand is a red/brown colour and red rocky outcrops dominate the scenery as we travel.

There is a slight wind today with some raised dust/sand. The temperature reads nearly 22 deg. As we turned north we could see the image of Mt Connor dominating the sky. It is a large sized mesa mountain…compared with the rounded shape to Ayres Rock but not as large. We would really like to be able to camp near it or climb it but such activities are forbidden.  Eventually we camped in a gravel pit as close to Mt Connor as we can even though we cannot see it from here due to trees and the undulating terrain. There is a small amount of passing traffic which we do not expect to be disturbed by. Again the sunset is a brilliant orange/red. All sunrises and sunsets have been so very bright on the morning and evening horizons.

Harlequin Mistletoe

Mob of wild camels

Stones around our camp