While I slept fantastically last night, Bec slept fitfully due to the cold. I didn’t feel it, obviously, although it was rather chilly when I first got out of bed this morning. There’s one of the drawbacks of free camping in the colder weather, and I’m not too sure what I would prefer. Stifling heat and no air conditioning, or freezing cold and no heating.

In any case, it was to a gloriously sunny morning that we awoke, busying ourselves with getting ready for our final run into Kalgoorlie today. It’s only about 280KM away, but would prove to be one of our more tiring days on the road. We started out okay, pulling out onto the highway a full ten minutes earlier than we had planned, which will see us arriving home now at about 5:40PM on the 11^th of October, although stay tuned on that front, as discussions are under way to extend our trip. Only by a few days, but it will be better than nothing if we can pull it off.

A beautiful day today.

Our constant travelling companion, the by now familiar water pipeline paralleling the road, was again a perpetually welcome sight, guiding us onwards to our destination. We even made the effort to stop and take a look at one of the designated pump houses, although the one we chose had long since fallen into disrepair. Rather than finding an ornate structure built in a long ago time, we found a cavernous hole in the ground, over which the pump house used to sit. Not even the ruins of the building remained to view, so we continued our travels.

A section of the ‘Golden Pipeline’. Maybe they should have called it the ‘Silvery Grey Pipeline’.

Throughout the morning, the road has been one of the worst we have encountered. Far from getting better as we left the pump house, the surface seemed to become even worse. Corrugated to a worse extent than many a dirt road we have travelled, causing an unremitting, bone jarring shudder to rage throughout ‘The Beast’. It mattered none what speed I travelled at, nor where I positioned the rig on the road. There was no way around it, but to sit, with gritted teeth and hope that the shaking would soon be over.
It wasn’t though, and lasted all day, causing Becs back to spasm painfully, while I succumbed to tiredness as a result of gripping the steering wheel as it twisted and spun, seemingly of its own accord. Even maintaining a steady speed was an effort, as my foot bounced around on the accelerator. In short, the drive today was nothing short of horrendous.

We bore the brunt of it until we reached Coolgardie, where we decided to stop for a break. Only a half an hour short of our final destination, we were both in dire need of a rest. To make the most of our unscheduled halt, we forked out the whole sum of $4.00 each, which gave us entry to the Goldfields Museum and the nearby Pharmacy Museum in a two for one deal.

Part of the bottle collection at the Goldfields Museum.

The Goldfields Museum is housed in the old courthouse complex, and charts the early history of Coolgardie, through the gold rush era. It features a large array of artifacts, including a massive bottle collection. Thousands of assorted bottles of differing shapes and colours fill the majority of an entire room. Other rooms are dedicated to pioneering ways of life, with mock ups of early campsites, bedrooms and kitchens. Another studio holds a dedicated display about the rescue of miner from a flooded mine shaft.

The Pharmacy Museum was only a short walk down the street, and while it was supposed to be closed already for the day, a knock on the window got the attention of a lady working within. She begrudgingly permitted us entry, since we already had the two for one tickets from the Goldfields Museum. I was thankful for that, because I might have otherwise felt ripped off.

Pharmacy…

…Museum.

This collection of pharmaceutical paraphernalia is contained within a single room, but is well crammed in. Little pill bottles, boxes of cure all concoctions, antique dentistry equipment and more were all displayed in cases and shelves reminiscent of an early chemist shop. While little information about the items was provided, it was an intriguing spectacle.

Leaving Coolgardie, we had barely 50KM to go before reaching the Boulder/Kalgoorlie area. Two separate towns, but joined like Siamese twins, they can almost be considered as one. The caravan park we are staying in is in Boulder, but it is only a few minutes drive to reach the city centre of Kalgoorlie.

Before taking a drive around town though, we set up the van. The park is almost full to capacity, but there was more than enough room for us to snuggly slot in between our two neighbours. A bit closer than comfortable, but satisfactory nonetheless. At least we will have access to power to run the heater overnight, although if the weather forecast is to be believed, we will be having to rifle through our closets again to dig out our warm weather clothes. It is meant to be warming up here during our stay. How lovely.

With the van set up, we jumped back into ‘The Beast’ to perform our usual exploratory drive about town. We found the main street of Boulder to be rather decrepit, many of the stores vacant and boarded up, faded ‘for lease’ signs adorning the facades. The central area of Kalgoorlie was a direct contrast, with a bustling main street that extended for several blocks featuring an assorted variety of retail outlets. It was already 5:00PM by this stage, so we stopped for a very late lunch at a fast food joint, before making our way back to the caravan to start work on preparing what would turn out to be a similarly late dinner.

Back at the van, we were also to find that the caravan heater seems to be on the blink. So we have all the power we need, and no heater anyway. Questioning if there is anything in this forsaken caravan that isn’t faulty or broken, coupled with the exhaustion of the last few days, for the first time since we left home, I felt like I was over it. As it stands, we can’t drive in wet weather, for fear of the van leaking. We can’t travel in hot weather, for fear of the fridge failing to function. Cold weather is also out now, with a lack of heating and using the washing machine is still fraught with the danger of the plumbing releasing a torrent of water across our site. Don’t even get me started on the myriad of other niggly little issues that we’ve come across, or else I might be here all night.

Pacing angrily up and down the van didn’t seem to help, as I was only able to take two strides in either direction, and I was soon too dizzy to continue. So, I sat down, took a handful of deep breaths and settled myself. I’m right now that I’ve got that rant out of my system and I’m not going to let it ruin the final weeks of our tour. Far from it in fact, as I head to bed early tonight, for a good nights rest, ready for a big day of sight seeing tomorrow.

Until next time, stay safe, have fun and don’t forget to write.