Great central goldfields.

We have travelled about 1300km since leaving Tom Price, and along the way have been through only 5 towns to arrive here at Laverton. (Newman, Meekatharra, Wiluna, Leinster and Leonora) That gives you an indication of how vast WA is, and how sparsely populated. Mining vehicles still dominated the road and on several occasions we had to pull off to allow wide trucks to pass.

The country is looking very healthy after recent rains and the few stock we’ve seen look in excellent condition. At  Meekatharra we found a great free camp site just out of town, named Peace Gorge. It was so named after the town celebrated the end of WW1, as that awful war took many of their young men, and those who returned were damaged either physically or mentally. We would have loved to have some children with us, as scrambling and climbing the rocks would have kept them entertained. 

We had an unsealed road across to Wiluna, but as we’ve found in WA, it was in excellent condition and we enjoyed the trip, seeing  surprising creeks and oasis's. 

Wiluna provided us with lunch stop  with a pretty park and information about the Canning Stock Route and Gunbarrel Highway, which depart from here. 

We spent the night in a little mining town called Leinster, which is owned by BHP. We were pretty happy to pay $10 for an unpowered site as we even had free laundry facilities, and most importantly, our campfire. We also spied Leinster’s answer to Natures Window at Kalbarri! 

Lunch at Leonora was also in a delightful picnic area - there is a lot of pride in these small towns.

We are now in Laverton, have secured our permits and tomorrow embark on the Great Central Road.

So we will leave you for a few days as doubt the phone service along the way will be good. WA has been very good to us - great weather, excellent locations, great roads and fantastic sight seeing. Until NT, love from the travellers. ❌❌❌❌