After surviving our night in Sandstone with the gale force winds, we packed up early to head to Laverton. On the way out we went to visit “Lady Di” of Sandstone! Now Lady Di is a unique character and you can’t miss her, she even yelled out to us as we were driving past and told us we had to try her pies!
She is set up in the main street just near the information centre and sells the most yummy pies and pasties cooked to order. Her dukkah is equally as good, made from bush ingredients collected locally by Lady Di and indigenous woman. Of course we bought a pie and some dukkah!
Next to Lady Di is an Asian guy selling fresh homemade bread and sauces, as well as fresh veggies. The bread was yum (and huge!) and so was the BBQ sauce.
Before leaving for the day we went to visit ‘London Bridge’, an attraction just out of Sandstone.
Now this is when the plans changed a little, when we saw a sign for Kalgoorlie. We had both wanted to go so we quickly got out the maps and saw that it wasn’t that far out of our way so decided to detour there for the night! We found an off-road shortcut and set out on our way.
Being a quick overnight stop we didn’t have too long to explore but it at least gave us an idea of what it was like, more than you see on Kalgoorlie Cops!!
The one thing we wanted to do was check out The Super Pit. This is the biggest open pit gold mine in Australia and it is HUGE! Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to do a tour so had to settle for the lookout.
The other tour we would have loved to do was of Questa Casa, the oldest working brothel in Western Australia! It is known to have been operational in the early 1900’s and has had a working life of at least 115 years as a brothel….. next time! And yes they do actual tours of the joint, we weren’t intending on ‘visiting’!
Kalgoorlie is quite a large town with some lovely old buildings, particularly some of the pubs, which are basically on every corner!
After a freezing cold night in Kalgoorlie, our coldest night yet, we packed up in 1 degree temperatures and headed off to start our return journey home via the Great Central Road (GCR).
On the way back up the freeway to join the GCR we stumbled across a little ghost town called Gwalia.
This living ghost town is the remains of a small settlement around the Sons of Gwalia Mine that flourished in the 1890s until 28 December 1963 when it closed and put 250 men out of work. Gwalia’s population of approx. 1200 fell to just 40 in less than 3 weeks.
Today, you can walk through the abandoned homes and businesses of the once thriving town.
Apparently back in the day people weren’t as tall as George! He would have struggled in there houses!
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