Go West Young Man

  Days 12,13 & 14 Friday Saturday & Sunday 31 July 01 August & 2 August 2026 First of all, apologies for missing a few days here and there but I am operating under technical difficulties that would send a lesser man over the edge.  The Hyden Hotel where I am staying has virtually no wifi in the rooms and not much more in the bar.  My laptop won't pick up a signal in the bar at all and the battery has forgotten how to hold a charge. Anyway at great personal sacrifice this episode of the blog is coming to you from the public bar of the hotel and is being prepared using my tablet.  This system does not give me access to any pics, so no photos today. (There is not enough grunt in the wifi to let me load pics to the cloud). Last Friday was a bit of a touristy day all carried out under clear blue skies and a temperature of about 22c, great weather for doing stuff.  If you like big machines and big boy toys Kalgoorlie is the place to visit.  The Hannan...

  Days 10 & 11 Wednesday & Thursday 29 & 30 July 2027 Wednesday was a short drive, by local standards, from Norseman to Kalgoorlie via Coolgardie.  Coolgardie is a small mining town that used to be a big mining town, it still has the big wide streets that would enable you to drop a u turn with your bullock team if you so wished. Coolgardie's main claim to fame is that it is here that the "Coolgardie Safe" was invented.  Even at this distance I can hear people saying "go on Graeme tell us about the Coolgardie Safe, it sounds very interesting".  Well, in the days before electricity and refrigeration the Coolgardie safe was used to keep perishable foodstuffs cool, but probably not cold.  The safe comprised of a wooden or metal frame, the size of a large box which was covered in fly wire.  There was a door at the front and shelves inside.  The whole thing was covered in hessian sacking and kept damp.  The safe was hung in the shade and som...

  Day 9 Tuesday 28 July 2026 436km today from Cocklebiddy to Norseman with a stop at Balladonia.  Balladonia's claim to fame is that sometime in the 1970s the US Skylab plunged back to earth in the Balladonia area.  The roadhouse there has a piece of the Skylab in its museum either kindly donated to them by NASA or stolen by the locals when NASA wasn't looking.  I am staying at the Balladonia roadhouse on the return journey so I will expand a little on this on the return journey. I am currently typing this in the motel/hotel/caravan park dining room and the table next to me is occupied by approximately 10 middle aged ladies or more likely elder ladies who appear to be on some sort of road trip and at 5.40pm are already getting rowdy.  They even have pink trip caps. The road trip today included a drive along longest piece of straight road in at least Australia.  The straight is 91 miles in the old language and 146.6km in the new.  Even then it is only a...

Day 8 Monday 27 July 2026 I never thought that I would say this but today's drive across the Nullabor was fascinating. The geography and vegetation was far different to what I expected.  I was expecting desert like sandhills with lots of camels, how wrong was I.  The land is primarly flat covered with green scrub and nary a camel in site.  On the SA side of the plain the road follows the cliff line close to the sea until just over the SA/WA border.  It is only then that you realise that the cliffs facing the Great Australian Bight are actually the southern end of plateau which drops down into the sea.   At Eucla in WA the road descends to a coastal plain and there is an escarpment on your right which leads back up to the plateau.  Only after looking at all this for  a little while I realised that this escarpment was a continuation of the cliffs facing the Bight predominately on the SA end of the plain. The road is in excellent condition with no, I...

  Day 7 Sunday 26 July 2026   Once again this will be a rather truncated blog posting.  I have arrive safely at the Nullabor Roadhouse and as then name suggests there are no trees anywhere within a couple of hundred kilometres of the place or anything else for that matter. I am using the roadhouse wifi which is very unreliable and limited on the amount of data I have available.  Also limited is the amount of water available, but judging by the warnings there is no limit to the number of snakes around the place. I've got a whole lot of food photos to post but unfortunately the limited wifi will not let me post pics, ce la vie, as they say in France. On the way here I took a side trip to the Head of the Bight where you there is a whale sanctuary and the Southern Right Whales come to feed and breed.  When I was there today there were about a dozen whales in the bay including a couple of calves including an albino calf, not sure how long the albino calf will last in...

  Days 5 & 6 Friday & Saturday 24 & 25 July 2026 Apologies one and all but I am still experiencing difficulties with obsolete technology, obsolete operator and dodgy hotel wifi. This is just to let you know that I have arrived safe and sound in Ceduna.   I am concerned cause I know how eagerly you look forward to my blog updates and I know how disappointed you are when I don't provide regular updates. Tomorrow I am travelling to the Nullabor road House and staying there that night.  I understand that there will be nothing else to do there than sort out my technical issues. So look forward to something more substantial tomorrow which will include a full description of the "Battle of Broken Hill" the only land battle fought in Australia in the TGW.  Got you on the edge of your seats now! This will be both interesting and educational!