LAVERTON TO MULLEWA

G’day all, well we started our trip from Laverton to Mullewa which was 850 odd kms (all part of the excitement, you know beautiful one day - piss off the next). We took 3 days to wander over, not a lot of different country until we got closer to the coast and the wildflowers started to appear along the roadside (Great sight after rocks, rubble and mulga).



On our first night we camped about 40kms east of Sandstone at Peter Denney Lookout (picture above). The next morning we headed into Sandstone. It’s a little town in the middle of nowhere but they have really set themselves apart from the rest. Not content with becoming a ghost town and falling to pieces, they are actually progressing by tidying up their town, planting trees, painting and straightening everything so it looks alive. It’s a huge task too keep trees alive long enough to take hold but they have poly pipe drippers everywhere and mostly out of site.
They highlight all their tourist points of interest such as London Bridge (above) and an old Brewery (below) built into the side of a hill, disused but it would make a good house out of the sun and keep the beer cool.

In contrast our next stop was Mt Magnet. A physically bigger town but one which has a large active mine in operation and I reckon 70% of the shops were closed and/or falling into disrepair. It’s the signs and symptoms of Fly In Fly Out and also a lack of forsight by the Shire. We heard on the radio after we had left that the Mt Magnet shire had just bought a whole stack of Dongers (small mine accomodation buildings) to set up as short term accomodation in competition with local businesses, well, you reckon the locals were happy.

While in Mt Magnet we bumped into a couple putting up a butcher sign on a butcher shop of all things (Ha Ha). They were also travelling in their bus doing vinyl signs as they went as a way of getting income, not a bad Idea. Funnily enough they were also heading for a job on the harvest but working for CBH (Co-operative Bulk Handling) who do all the grain storage and handling in Western Australia. Anyone can get work anywhere over here, there are vacancy signs everywhere.

We camped the second night approximately 10kms east of Mullewa. Mullewa is a different story again. Once the small town hub of a large grain area it is slowly being taken over by the areas Abbo’s and most is closed and boarded up. You can see the Shire is trying but I think they are fighting a loosing battle, the Abbo’s don’t have any respect for public property let alone their own.

After delaying the enevitable for long enough we headed for our property of choice and employment for the next couple of months (I really just want to go fishing). The people here have been very accomodating, run by a father & son Tim and Peter Freeman with one fulltime fella called Troy. The owners live in Geraldton and travel out daily whereas Troy lives on the property with his wife Leanne and Kelpie Rosey.

They couldn’t have been more accommodating - allowing us space in one of the big sheds to park the bus, supplying us with old carpets from a business in town to put outside over the sand which gives us an outdoor entertaining area and running the power and water across so all we have to do is walk over to the toilets - and they’re going to pay me LOL.

So far all the work has been preparing the headers and other bits and pieces for the work ahead. This I wasn’t expecting but it’s been very useful because now I understand the machinery a little bit better and it’s given me time to look around before the shit hits the fan.