Good Morning Williams!
Low 5°c (41°F) – High 14°c
(57°F)
Thanks to the ever increasing weather warning area Williams too enjoyed
a night of wind and torrential rain, but I’m sure it was less severe than we
would have experienced had we stayed in Augusta where the weather warnings keep
coming. When we arrived yesterday I was
really indecisive about where to park as there were gum trees all around the
park and frankly having one of those fall over in a wind storm isn’t something
I was keen to be near. However with only
2 vans in the park on our arrival we ended up pulling up next to one of
them. As luck would have it, that van
acted as quite the wind shield for us last night however that didn’t stop the
bits of branches and other debris from clattering onto the roof every time
there was a big gust of wind. Sleep was
forthcoming but interrupted but we survived the night.
I forgot to mention that yesterday as we were roughly 70km out of
Williams we passed a car that appeared to be doing road mapping (potentially
for Google). So we’ll have to keep an
eye out to see if we make it to the street view! It’s the second time we’ve passed a car doing
mapping – the other one was about a year ago near Pomborneit about 27km from
home.
We didn’t have much to pack up but pulled out of the park around 9.30am
and into the petrol station to refuel. I
then phoned the caravan park to see if anyone was in so that we could pay for
our night’s accommodation. I think the
lady was a little surprised that we were honest enough to contact them and gave
us a small discount because they weren’t there to assist us last night which
was lovely.
Today’s journey was blessed with sunshine for possibly half of the
driving time but the wind continued to escalate and we drove through some
showers and some heavy rain with the last 70 or so kilometers travelled at
80km/hr or below due to the high cross winds making for a very tiring journey.
Much of the route followed a water pipeline which reduced in size the
further we went. We were wondering what
communities it serviced until we came across a section that had come apart and
was sitting on the ground. That would be
No Communities.
The first town we entered started with a massive cemetery, the size of
which surprised both of us as we couldn’t understand why a small country town
would have so many dead people. We did
make jokes about perhaps it wasn’t the best place to move to, until we realized
that it wasn’t a tiny town but a much larger town of Narrogin. Had we realized we might have thought about
staying here last night instead of Williams but we had everything we needed and
we had been ready to finish up for the day.
Narrogin is an Aboriginal name, having been first recorded as
"Narroging" for a pool in this area in 1869. The meaning of the name is uncertain, various
sources recording it as "bat camp", "plenty of everything"
or derived from "gnargagin" which means "place of water". In the age of steam engines, Narrogin
was one of the largest railway operation hubs in the southern part of Western
Australia. The arrival of the Great
Southern Railway in 1889 initiated the first hint of a town. The railway
company was in search of good reliable watering points along the route from
Perth to Albany and purchased Narrogin pool, and it was around this pool that
the town developed. Narrogin remained a
major rail centre until the late 1970s when competition from road transport saw
a reduction in the railway's workforce.
Today it has a population of almost 4300 people which kind of explains
the confusion around the size of the cemetery.
Once again the greens and yellows dominated the paddocks either side of
us as we are in the Wheatbelt region, which is one of nine regions
of Western Australia defined as administrative areas for the state's
regional development, and a vernacular term for the area converted to agriculture
during colonisation. With the crops also
come the birds and there were quite a few flocks of pink galahs, one in
particular on a golf course that consisted of hundreds of them. It was quite the sight to see them all take
flight at once.
Everywhere there is water, particularly alongside the roads. On this leg of the journey there were a
number of floodways that were under water – one of them a car ahead of us went
through comfortably so we headed through ourselves. Only about 20cm of water as indicated by the
markers on the side of the road, but it certainly caused some spray out the
side of the car and up over the windscreen.
We arrived in Hyden just before 1.00pm and made our way out to the Wave
Rock caravan park, a little to the north of the town. The caravan park is another circular design
and sadly our site was very narrow and very uneven. We had to park two wheels of the van up on
the area set aside for the awning and additionally put those wheels up on ramps
just to get the van even which left no room to extend the awning and nowhere to
park the car. Many other vans had a
similar issue with levels. The sites are
barely adequate but it seems that the majority of people only stay one or two
nights, as we are, so having to park the car away from the site isn’t a major
problem. The only other issue was
virtually no internet signal to speak of, and when you could speak of it - it
seemed to get shy and disappear. That
also included no phone reception either.
I have to add I wasn’t keen on the huge gum tree branch that was hanging
towards the back of the van and groaning against the high winds. But we’re here and only for 2 nights.
We got ourselves set up and pulled out the washing machine as the sun
was out. After getting a couple of loads
done all of a sudden the sky was blackened and down came a torrential burst of
rain and huge gusts of wind. The rain and wind continued to get worse as the
day wore on so there was no other option but to deploy a washing line in the
van. A bit of creative line stringing
and I had two clothes lines (albeit short), one either side of the air
conditioner’s heater from which to hang the wet clothes. Surprisingly all but a couple of dog towels
we had been using to keep the floor dry were ready to put away by the time we
went to bed.
We had lunch and went for a bit of a drive to get our bearings on where
everything was, both Wave Rock and the township. A quick visit to the local supermarket to get
a few necessities which turned out NOT to include meat - $26 for 500grams of
minced beef – I don’t think so! Back to
the van to try getting the rest of the clothes dry and a well earned rest. The rain and wind continued into the night
making it difficult to keep poor Kitty dry when she needed to go out.
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