Left Cue and headed to Mt Magnet , stopped to shop for some food and then continued on to a little place called Yalgoo - another gold mining town - this one a bit smaller than Cue . This one has a shop , nursing station , school , hotel , council yard & Police Station , oh and a horse race track as well as the caravan park and the Emerald Gold Mine . Not sure how active the mine is , guessing not very !
The drive was through a lot of sparse vegetation and typical outback , lot’s of dead trees , sand and rocks . Mainly flat roads and not a lot of traffic meant a pleasant drive .
Sunset wasn’t too bad either .
Today we head out to Jokers Tunnel , apparently the miners used to name mines with card game names . There was a lot of investment from England during the gold mining boom , they were willing to invest in lot’s of projects - and did . The Mining companies may not have been terribly ethical and may have led some of the investors astray - Jokers Mine was apparently dug in a location that puzzled many a miner - it was a place not really destined for much gold . 3 ounces were produced out of 50,000 tonnes of rock - not a very good return on investment - someone made some money out of this venture , not the investors though !
It makes a good tourist attraction though - a 100m tunnel through one rocky hill !! You can see the end from the beginning , it starts off about 1.7m high and about 1.2m wide and increases in height a bit before getting lower & lower at the other end .
It’s inhabited by bats , many hundreds of small grasshoppers , some moths and something with a stripey tail . We were warned that there could be snakes & bats in there and to take a torch with you . We used our phones , as our torch had flat batteries , and made our way inside . The colour of the rocks inside was quite unexpected .
Further in was an offshoot to the left , the light from the phone adequate but not great , it was then I spotted the stripey tail , immediately stopped and turned the light toward the tail - to my huge relief it was a lizard and not a snake !!!
A bit further and we had a moth reflecting light from it’s wings .
Then we found our first bat hanging from the ceiling .
Patterns in the rock changed again , revealing a multi layered section that went for quite a way .
As we got to the other end we had to stoop down so we didn’t hit our heads - I think the miners realised it was a farce and decided to not dig out so much - the height reducing to about 1.3m ! And then we were out in the sunshine on the other side of the very rocky hill - much quicker than if we had to climb over it !
Back through to the start again to views of a distant salt lake , hills and trees .
We drove around to the other end of the tunnel & continued up a track for a few kilometres checking out the scenery . Back again and along another track to a mine lease , then back to a ridge top for a bit of a walk around . Wildflowers are out & about here as well , not as prolific as we’ve seen before , but still good .
Back into town stopping at the old railway water tank & station . The station is now utilised as part of the grandstand for the race track .
Tourism in the goldfields has stumbled onto laser cutting steel with images and pictures , all the towns we’ve been in of late have similar structures , all individual - Yalgoo has 3 , this one is the eastern entrance .
Monsignor Hawes - a catholic priest who is famous for his architecture , designed and built the convent , which is now just ruins and a chapel , which is still standing . He was a resident of Mullewa - about 80 klms from us , and our destination for tomorrow .
From the church we headed up to the lookout , revealing the extent of Yalgoo .
There’s a road heading north through the outback , so we had a look , driving out about 10klms along a good gravel road , finding a quartz blow beside the road .
That was it for the day , sunset lit the sky up for us .
Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BwxD0RxJlZCDyt2feI8uMeGc0xhK6RSL&usp=sharing
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