The Eyre Peninsula

We spent 2 days driving the Eyre Peninsula stopping at most of the bays as well as Port Lincoln and Whyalla. The coastline along the Eyre Peninsula is quite beautiful the ocean is very clear and clean. we were lucky to have a couple of nice days with the weather, as wasn't too windy and seas calm. The Country side in this area is very dry, with no much grass.
You could could spend weeks in this area of the country just relaxing on the beaches and watching the waves.

Us at Smokey Bay

Largest Shark caught on a Real at Streaky Bay.

Streaky Bay Jetty

Cliffs near Venus Bay

Tourist Cliff Drive at Elliston

Sun setting at Coffin Bay

Driving along

Jetty at Tumby Bay

The Loaded Dog at Whyalla

Ship at Whyalla Museum

Flinders Ranges on the way back into Port Augusta

Back on the Nullarbor

We started the Nullarbor again on Sunday afternoon, we stopped at a roadside camp about 180km in, most of the camps are really good along the Nullarbor, they are all quite big with lots of trees and shade. As we had stopped at all the lookouts on the way over we didn't stop at too many on the way back. The wind was heaps better than on our way over and the ocean was mostly calm. We stopped our second night at the Eucla roadhouse caravan park. We drove down to the old Telegraph station that is now cover in the forever moving sand dunes while we were there, it was well worth the visit. The Nullarbor was quite abit drier than on our way over, they must of had some really warm days in the last 4 weeks. We got to Ceduna Tuesday afternoon, and it was nice to stop for awhile after a couple of big driving days, as well as losing 2 hours across the boarder.

The old Telegraph Station at Eucla

 Me standing in the doorway heading into the hallway

Old Telegraph Station under the sand dunes

 Royal Flying Doctors airstrip on the Nullarbor

Sun setting at the Ceduna jetty

Kalgoorlie

We stayed at Kalgoorlie 2 nights at a huge camp about 12km out of town. Kalgoorlie is a huge mining industry town, with the Superpit being the biggest open cut mine in Australia and is visable from space. We all took the tour of the Superpit were we went to the internal viewing platforms and were able to get up close to the massive dump trucks, we also seen the mechanic workshop and the milling machines that process the high grade ore to extract the gold. It was a great tour and we found out lots of interesting information about the mine. While in Kalgoorlie we also visited the muesum, it has a gold vault that houses many very large pieces of gold that is on display for viewing. We also went to the lookouts and the old 2 up shed (a shed were 2 up was legally allowed to be played). Before leaving on Sunday we went to the Boulder Markets and had a look at the pub that has a mining shaft directly under it in the bar area.

 Kalgoorlie from the lookout

Looking into the Superpit

Trevor and Ray looking offical in their highvis vest

The Superpit lit up at night

The dump trucks working the Superpit (top speed 12km/hr up hill when loaded)

Up close with a loaded dump truck

Geraldton and The Goldfields

We headed north to Geraldton. Being Easter Monday hardly anything was open and we needed supplies for our trip East into the goldfields. We drove around Geraldton and found the only super market open.
We also took the last opportunity to swim on the coast in WA. The water was warm and was very nice.
We headed east and pulled up on the side of the road in a great large camp area where we where the only ones. Next day headed into a town called Sandstone where we saw their natural London Bridge, and camped the night a Linster caravan park. Linster is a mining town, where all the workers quarters and officers are. We had the chance to go to the mining mess where we paided $12ea for all you can eat.
Form Linster we drove down to Leonora and looked at the ghost town nearby. Also we looked at the edge of at very large mining Pit. We camped the night at Niagara Dam 60ks south for 2 nights.
Next day we explored another ghost town nearby and tried our luck at finding gold with Melissa's parents metal detector. We found heaps of wire and rubbish but leaving the gold nugget for next time.

Geraldton

Beach we had a swim at

Church at Mullewa

Starting the outback

London Bridge near Sandstone

Ghost town near Leonora

Mining Pit (see the dump truck at the bottom)

Swimming at Niagara Dam

Looking for the nugget!

The Pinnacles

We traveled from New Nocia to the Pinnacles.
The Pinnacles was quite a unique landscape, and we very surprised they allowed people to drive around them (Caravans not allowed so we walked).
The sand was so yellow and looked like the deserts you see at the movies compared to the white sand dunes nearby. We spent a few hours walking around and taking in the beauty of the landscape, the day was quite warm.
We then traveled the Sunset Coast looking for a free camp site we heard about. Being Easter Sunday every where was full. But we found our camp site which was good and watched the sunset over the ocean.

Us all at the Pinnacles

There was so many rocks all over. Its hard to show how many there was.

Our campsite near the ocean. (WA does have many waves)

Waiting for the the Sun to go down.

New Norcia

We travelled inland from Fremantle to a place called New Norcia, this town still operates as a monastery and is Australia's only monastic town (there are currently 10 monks). The town was established in 1846 as a mission by Spanish monks and is named after the Italian town of Norcia. There are many old buildings with most of them Spanish inspired. We took a 2hr tour of the town than went up to the hotel to try the locally made Abbey Ale.

New Norcia Hotel

Paintings inside the boys college chapel

Abbey Church, oldest church still in use

Girls college

Boys college

Perth

We made it to Perth! Perth is a nice city and easy to drive around. We traveled into the city to Kings park which is assume and visited the Mint. Here we got to touch a 12.5kg bar of gold (locked down pretty well), also got to see gold being poured. We walked down London Court which is a narrow street that looks like traditional London shopping street. We drove around the bell tower.
We drove up the coastline and stopped in at many of the beaches as well as the famous Cottesloe Beach. The ocean was rough due to the weather for the most of the time here.

View of Perth City from Kings Park.

Perth Mint

London Court

Perth Bell Tower

Cottesloe Beach

Perth and Swan River from Kings Park lookout

Fremantle

We arrived in Fremantle on Tuesday after lunch. We stayed 4 nights here (as a base to travel around Perth).
Fremantle is a beautiful old town which has many old buildings and streets and also a very large shipping large port. We spent many hours walking in the old streets and buildings looking at the sights.

Town Hall

At the Round House (first public building - Gaol)

Large ferris wheel (Melissa enjoyed going on)

Irsh Pub where we all had dinner one night (Beer is expensive in WA on tap)

Another Street View of the buildings

Watching the Sunset over the ocean.