We were up early this morning courtesy of William. We had brekkie and while we packed up, William has developed a habit of playing in the car by himself; which makes the packing up a lot easier. We stopped in and said a quick hello/goodbye to Ferg and were on our way to the Gold Mine Museum. We got there at 9.30am, but it didn’t open until 10am. We had morning tea in the car park, before the gardener let us into the grounds to sit on a park bench and wait.
We got inside, grabbed our map and headed down to the Gold Vault. We read all about the value of gold and about how the greedy people were murdering police and other people just to get their hands on some. They had examples of all the different kinds of gold, such as it is found in quartz and leaf gold. The museum had a head frame there so we jumped into the lift, which took us up to about half way, which would have been for doing maintenance, which is now a lookout. William was pretty impressed we could see our car from up there.
We then headed outside to the mock set up of an old miners cottage that a local lady had lived in up until her death just a few years back. There was also a Police Wagon which would travel on the rail lines as their relocatable police station. They also had parts of the old water pipeline that we had seen on the road from Perth to Kalgoorlie.
There was an old hotel, which was the narrowest hotel built, where you could see an old dentist’s office and an example of the upper class’ living room. There was also a section of the museum upstairs that was light and humidity controlled which held hand painted flags, mainly banners for unions. When you walk in it, it was pitch black, we stood there for a few seconds confused until we took another step forward and the sensor turned the lights on. Through that room, there was more information and examples about the gold rush and the aboriginal people. There was also a section about the Super Pit, which explained that it was due for completion in 2021 and some people were concerned what would happen to the town once it was finished. There are so many mines in the area it is hard to believe that the mining would stop suddenly.
After a quick stop at the supermarket we were headed for Norseman. It was 1pm by now and we were unsure how far we’d make it. Down the road, after Will and Kelley had woken up, we stopped for some lunch in a rest area. We made our own sandwiches and enjoyed a picnic next to the car. It was Kelley’s turn to drive next so after attempting to start the car with no luck, Neil jumped in. the car would start but quickly stop. Worried we were out of petrol, Neil put a jerry can in. Same problem though, car could start, but not stay running. Thinking it was the fuel pump again; Neil jacked the car up and noticed it wasn’t ticking like it should be. Luckily he remembered to check the switch in the boot. It had been bumped when the chairs had been put back in there after lunch. After a few minutes of (Kelley’s) panic, we were finally on our way. Norseman wasn’t far down the road and by the time we got there it was around 4.30pm and too late to make it to the free camping 70kms down the road. We pulled into the same Caravan Park we had stayed in a few weeks earlier. Will had a good run around while we set up.
We are hopefully going to make it past Madura tomorrow, as we don’t want to keep staying in the same places again.