Good Morning Hyden!
Low 7°c (41°F) – High 14°c
(57°F)
What a pleasant change to have no wind or rain for the night and to
actually have a sunrise to see. Almost
every morning I’ve peeked out the window at first light and there have only
been clouds for weeks.
As we were packing up our neighbour next door was also winding up hoses
and getting ready to depart. There are two
sorts of campers in the morning – those who are friendly and those who just
want to get packed up and moved out. We
like to think we’re the friendly kind and given the weather has been so shite
for the two days we’ve been here we haven’t even sighted our neighbours (in
fact we hadn’t even seen them leave their caravan), so I remarked how lovely it
was to see the sun finally to which he mumbled a reply and put his head down
and kept packing. It doesn’t cost anything
to be cordial and it’s not like I was asking for his life story, but Mr Furkoff
(as we later named him) wasn’t having a bar of it and took his hose reel to the
other side of the van. Pretty sure his
first name was Youcan – anyway I took the hint and got back to the process of
getting ourselves on the road.
We were packed up and heading out the gates around 8.30am – it was
quick because it was so bloody cold you had to keep moving to try to keep warm.
Periodic sunshine and clouds, though much less threatening, was the flavor
of the morning, although it was freezing cold for most of the trip to Merredin. Thankfully no rain or wind to contend with,
which made driving a more pleasurable task than it has been over recent days. Western Australia is still the king of
straight roads.
Occasionally there are photo opportunities signposted along the road
and often you don’t know what it is that is suggested to be a photo op. Today’s gems were a Shoe Fence and a Bra
Fence. Sadly the bras were a little
weather beaten but hundreds of shoes of every conceivable type could be seen
attached to the fence.
Shane was excited to see road trains again, I think it’s that
connection between road trains and the outback, me – yes they are interesting
but not fun to pass or be passed by especially when towing a van, and a few wide
loads with BA things (mostly excavation equipment) being transported. There are also lots of unused railway lines
that we’ve come across in recent days - signs say look for trains so you slow
down to look only to find that the track is overgrown and not in use. I wonder how hard it would be to replace
those signs with a “Railway Track not currently in use” sign…..
We arrived in Merredin around 11.30am and got ourselves set up easily
on a double site. Clearly the park isn’t
expecting a rush of customers tonight.
Given it was still pretty cold, I made pancakes for lunch to warm us up. We had a break and made a couple of calls
since we haven’t had reception in a couple of days and then headed out for a
look around Merredin and visited another op shop scoring a few more goodies for
the Halloween pirate scene.
Merredin is roughly midway between Perth and Kalgoorlie
and its history varies from that of other wheat-belt towns in Western Australia
in the sense that it started as a stopping place on the way to the goldfields.
In 1888 the area to the east of Merredin
was officially proclaimed a goldfield and over the next decade prospectors
and fossickers poured through the area. Gold was discovered at Coolgardie in
1892 and at Kalgoorlie a year later. Merredin's importance as a town
was directly related to the establishment of a superb water catchment scheme on
Merredin Peak. During World War II,
Merredin was the location of RAAF No.26 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot (IAFD),
built in 1942 and closed on 14 June 1944. It was situated on Cummings Street and has
since had a house built on top.
We drove past some uninspiring silo art and after driving around much
of the town we happened across the park with a small lake and a fountain. I could see ducks out on the lake and so we
drove in to take some photos. It started
well and there were lots of different types of ducks out on the pond to
photograph. All of a sudden there was a
lot of quacking and movement and they set upon us. Obviously people come to the pond and feed
them – well unfortunately we didn’t get that memo and had nothing for
them. OMG talk about feel guilty and the
looks we got – and one was giving us a right royal quacking as it headed back
to the water. OOPS.
Back to camp we set up the pens for Kitty to be able to spend a bit of
time in the sunshine. It was so nice to
be able to have the door open and enjoy the fresh air, but in true form Kitty
spent a little bit of time out there but because we weren’t sitting out with
her into the van she came to be with us.
It was also really nice to finally see a decent sunset after weeks of
grey clouds. We are looking forward to a
couple of days at least of nicer weather before we head south again and start
our trip across the Nullarbor.
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