Day 22: 25/9/2014 Perth, WA
to Norseman, WA Distance
traveled: 830km
Today we got a reasonably early start, leaving Perth at 7:30 AM. Pat was sorry to leave the City Stay Hotel, as she claims
it had the most comfortable bed on the whole trip. Luckily, as we were
heading out of the city, we were going against peak hour traffic and it didn't
take too long to get out of Perth. We made good progress until we got
past a small town called Southern Cross, then I got a friendly reminder from
the WA Police to stick to the speed limit. Luckily, the nice officer did just
give me a warning.
We were planning to make it to Kalgoorlie by 2PM, so that we could do a tour of the Royal Flying Doctors Service station there, but we ran into a lot of road work along the way, and weren't sure that we would make it in time. Stopping in Kalgoorlie meant about a 100 km detour off the shortest route, and we almost passed it up, but made a last minute choice to go anyway. Luckily, we did make it just in time for the tour, and it was well worth the time! I would highly recommend taking the tour at any of their stations - it was really interesting and inspiring.
After the tour, it was a quick lunch, then back on the road again for the last 185 km run to Norseman. Like Kalgoorlie, Norseman was settled and grew due to the gold rush era. This is where gold was first discovered in the region. The story goes that in 1894 a prospector, Lawrence Sinclair, was looking for gold... when his horse wandered off. When he managed to find him he noticed that the horse had scraped up some rocks that looked distinctive. Yep, it was gold! The horse's name - Hardy Norseman. Today, Norseman has a population of approximately 860, but at one time was the biggest gold mining centre in Western Australia. Tomorrow is the start of the Gold Fever Festival, but sadly we need to get on the road early to start across the Nullarbor.
We were planning to make it to Kalgoorlie by 2PM, so that we could do a tour of the Royal Flying Doctors Service station there, but we ran into a lot of road work along the way, and weren't sure that we would make it in time. Stopping in Kalgoorlie meant about a 100 km detour off the shortest route, and we almost passed it up, but made a last minute choice to go anyway. Luckily, we did make it just in time for the tour, and it was well worth the time! I would highly recommend taking the tour at any of their stations - it was really interesting and inspiring.
After the tour, it was a quick lunch, then back on the road again for the last 185 km run to Norseman. Like Kalgoorlie, Norseman was settled and grew due to the gold rush era. This is where gold was first discovered in the region. The story goes that in 1894 a prospector, Lawrence Sinclair, was looking for gold... when his horse wandered off. When he managed to find him he noticed that the horse had scraped up some rocks that looked distinctive. Yep, it was gold! The horse's name - Hardy Norseman. Today, Norseman has a population of approximately 860, but at one time was the biggest gold mining centre in Western Australia. Tomorrow is the start of the Gold Fever Festival, but sadly we need to get on the road early to start across the Nullarbor.
Next stop border town Eucla, WA
Cockpit of a PC-12 Pilatus. RFDS only use 1 pilot per plane.
The only Camels I saw in Norseman.
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