DAY 90 – Menzies - Norseman

Good Morning Menzies!
 
Low 5°c (41°F) – High 13°c (55°F)
325km
 
Yet another really cold night – note to self – travel during winter is cold – pack the little oil heater!  It would have been perfect for the past few weeks and beyond to keep the van toasty overnight without having to listen the noisy air conditioner running all night.  In fact we’ve turned it off once we went to bed.  Thankfully it is a mere whisper outside the van, but inside it sounds like a constant gale force wind.
 
We contemplated staying an extra night in Menzies, but at the end of the day we would have probably spent at least half of it in the van out of the rain, and so we packed ourselves up and moved on.  Originally the plan was to go back to Kalgoorlie, and potentially backtrack to Coolgardie, but honestly at the end of the day we would have done the same there and although there was no doubt more to see we decided to push on to Norseman instead.  We did stop in at Kalgoorlie to refuel and Shane was keen to buy a coffee.  Sadly it turned out to be the world’s worst cup of coffee (unfortunately he purchased one for me as well – no better) and so they sat in the console for the trip.
 
Along the way we saw so many abandoned vehicles, some just left on the side of the road with or without number plates and also remnants of a couple of nasty accidents and a firm reminder of how dangerous the roads can be sometimes.  We also had a few minutes of tension with a roadtrain where a B-Double truck attempted to overtake it but just wasn’t getting anywhere, eventually still sitting out on the wrong side of the road with double lines indicating no passing.  And then it was our turn to pass him and as I about to pull out another 4wd towing a caravan swung out behind me and passed everything at once, followed by another 4wd travelling with them (also towing – we had seen them pulled over on the side of the road back a ways) and so we had to wait for another opportunity while watching them also passing on double lines.  I’m more than happy to wait my turn for a safe spot to pass thank you – no desire to get anywhere in a box.
 
Plenty of things to amuse though including town names like “Widgiemooltha”, and apparently here the Kangaroos prefer to jump over Emus for which I’m sure the cows are grateful, though we are still yet to see this with our own eyes!
 
The weather was quite stormy looking and we did get a few showers and a couple of heavy downpours of rain, although with sunshine appearing behind us occasionally it did offer a couple of opportunities to get some unique shots of the trees against the storm clouds.  Plenty of big rainbows appeared before us only to be virtually washed away by yet another shower of rain.
 
It was a bit of a drive and we pulled in to the Caravan Park on the edge of town around 1.30pm.  Not much to write home about here, it’s an uninspiring park with lots of old trees, a few cement pads that are all sorts of odd shapes and dirt.  The storms left everything a bit soggy but we have power and water.  We managed to get set up just before the rain hit yet again, and settled in to have some lunch and a coffee before having a look around town.
 
Norseman is located in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia along the Coolgardie-Esperance Highway. It is also the starting point of the Eyre Highway, and the last major town in Western Australia before the South Australian border 720km (447 mi) to the east.  At the 2016 census, Norseman had a population of almost 600.  Like many other towns in the gold regions here, the quest for gold led to the establishment of Norseman, on the traditional lands of the Ngadju. Today there are a number of small goldmining operations in the area but only the Central Norseman Gold Corporation can be considered a major producer. Gold was first found in the Norseman area in 1892, about 10 km south of the town, near Dundas. The "Dundas Field" was proclaimed in August 1893 and a townsite gazetted there.
 
In August 1894, Lawrence Sinclair, his brother George Sinclair, and Jack Alsopp discovered a rich gold reef which Sinclair named after his horse, Hardy Norseman.  When the prospector Sinclair stopped off to visit his brother on his way to Esperance, he tethered his horse "Hardy Norseman" overnight and in the morning was amazed to discover that it had pawed up a gold nugget. A rich gold reef was discovered on the already proclaimed Dundas Field and thousands flocked to make their fortune.  A statue of the horse now stands in front of a park in the town and all of the street names have a silhouette of a horse on the signposts.
 
Norseman initially struggled to develop because of the established town of Dundas; but, between 1895 and 1901, a post office, banks, doctor, courthouse, stores and churches were established and, in 1899 Cobb & Co, mail coaches started delivering mail to Norseman. In 1935, Western Mining Corporation came to Norseman and invested significantly in its infrastructure, resulting in new bitumen roads, electricity and an extension of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme to the town.
 
Once it was the second-richest goldfield in Western Australia, next to the Golden Mile of Kalgoorlie. It is claimed that since 1892, over 100 tonnes of gold have been extracted from the area. Until its closure in 2014 it was Australia's longest continuously running gold mining operation, producing approximately six million ounces from its opening in 1935.  A 50% acquisition of the mine by “Pantoro” in July 2019 saw the mine reopened and expanded.
 
We took a drive up to the lookout above the mine which certainly has a great view of the area.  The massive grey wall of mine tailings almost looks as though someone decided to recreate the Pyramids.
 
Now I always try to look for the positive in things but I have to say “I got nuthin’ here”.  Norseman is literally the place where dreams come to die – seriously.  The town is tired, unkept and unloved and the Shire of Dundas has an office here in the main street.  More than half the stores are empty and what is there has no life to it.  Houses are run down, no gardens to speak of, most of them at best fibro shacks and hardly any brick homes.  Even the best house we could find had barely any garden and yet in some driveways there were some quite expensive cars including a Mercedes, a Jag and some high end 4wds.  The area of the town is quite large and there are entire blocks that remain undeveloped with perhaps only one or two houses on the entire block while those blocks are surrounded by completely developed blocks in the middle of town.  The whole concept gave me a headache and I wondered whether Norseman residents ever had a sense of community pride even when the town had its heyday.  In the end we headed back to camp because the place was just so depressing and so we found another WOW but for all the wrong reasons.
 
The evening was so cold I spent most of it with a coat wrapped around my legs and so we ended up having a reasonably early night and a plan to make for Esperance in the morning.