1 October: No rain waking us today but overcast and cool. Luckily the wind has abated so an uneventful drive to Leinster, a BHP nickel mining town with the campground open to the public. The town has a bit of a run down look as though it could be closing.
2 October: Off down the Goldfields Highway. Passed several mine sites, both current and abandoned. Some pretty big holes have been excavated! Stopped off at Gwalia (just out of Leonora) and looked around the Sons of Gwalia Goldmine Museum ( mine was a large underground mine which closed in 1963 and the town “died”). Museum was well done with lots of exhibits and information about the mine and what it was like to living and working in Gwalia. The first mine engineer was Herbert Hoover (before he was the US President). His house has been restored and is now a B&B. The has reopened as an opencast mine but the mine workers now live in Leonora.
Turned off at Menzies and headed to Lake Ballard. Picked a good sheltered campsite and set up then went off to explore the “Inside Australia” art exhibition on the lake (salt lake). The exhibition was created in 2002 for the 50th anniversary of the Perth International Arts Festival in 2003. It features 51 sculptures by Antony Gormley, derived from laser scans of inhabitants of Menzies and then cast in alloy. The weather wasn’t the best with big black clouds and a shower of rain. The edge of the lake was reasonably dry but further out it started to get quite soft so we skidded and plodded around some of the sculptures (they cover an area of 10square km so weren’t going to see all of them!). It was certainly worth while visiting.
3 October: A windy night and a cloudy morning with storms being forecast so we didn’t stay another day as part of the road in to the lake was dirt. Headed back out to Menzies and had a look around the very tidy little town before retracing our route back up the Goldfields Highway. This time we free camped at the Peter Denny Lookout. Good outlook over a breakaway, spacious and only a couple of other vans so quite ok.
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