Leaving Kalgoorlie when the weather settled and was much nicer for travel , we head for Perth . Just out of Kalgoorlie is Coolgardie , a small town which would have been a bustling town in it's day . Plenty of beautiful old buildings to see lining the main road .
This will be a place we check out at a later date .
Venturing further along the highway , the land starts to flatten out and the road stretches into the distance .
Arriving at Merredin in the afternoon , we chose to free camp for the night near an old railway dam . It has some history to it - CY O'Connor - the engineer in charge of building the golden pipeline , was also the engineer in charge of building this dam and it's unique catchment system . But first , we went for a walk around and over Merredin Peak - a granite outcrop . There are various walking tracks that take you around and over the peak . These are some of the Salmon Gums on the way .
This is the view from the top of the peak looking over town .
After recent rain , these very small flowers are sprouting out of the granite gravel .
We were impressed that we could spend the night here amongst these beautiful trees.
This is where we tell you about the catchment system that fills the dam , previously used to fill the steam trains on their way too & from the goldfields . They built walls around the base of the rock to catch all the rainwater runoff and funnel it into a channel and further down to the dam itself . There were 2 floodgates , one to direct into the dam , the other to direct the water away in times of flood , so it didn't run into town . The walls are solid granite slabs backed up with soil to strengthen them - quite a feat to build them with the appropriate angle for runoff etc , capturing all the water running off the rock - 20 to 30 acres of rock !!!
This is where it funnelled into the channel to the dam .
This is the channel itself - pretty good job I'd say , to get the slope right and the walls as level as they are .
This is the entrance to the dam at the end , the water now used to irrigate the gardens at the railway station .
Leaving Merredin the next morning , we found ourselves in wheat country , farmers in the process of sowing their crops for the coming season , recent rains coming at the right time for some .
A constant companion has been the golden pipeline and the railway , swapping to different sides of the road as we went along .
The odd salt lake started appearing here & there , there's plenty of them in WA !!
The engineer of the pipeline , CY O'Connor , was under immense pressure with the pipeline , he finally crumbled under the pressure , riding his horse into the surf at a beach near Fremantle and shooting himself !!!
The country is pretty flat nearly all the way , only starting to climb some hills around Northam on the eastern side of the Darling Range before dropping down onto the coastal plain at Perth .
We spent the next 9 days at Mandurah , catching up with Emma , Mike & Pepper . The weather also hasn't been the best , we had about 3 dry days , rain was a constant companion .
Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pPwvo4Ikd_H9vXV2EuB00WzjIVi0TQ3W&usp=sharing
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