Ghost Towns, Statues and Living in the Desert

Gateshead – North of England - bleak, barren, miles from civilisation and the site of Antony Gormley’s iconic statue “Angel of the North”

Lake Ballard – Northern Goldfields of Western Australia – bleak, barren, miles from civilisation and the site of Antony Gormley’s epic creation “Inside Australia”

Lake Ballard is a vast salt lake which is the setting for the most amazing sculptural experience. Fifty-one metal figures, based on computer generated body scans of the inhabitants of Menzies, the nearest settlement, then placed, seemingly at random, over the bed of the lake which, when we were there, was dry and completely white with crystallised salt. The effect was quite surreal.

We were travelling through country with a fascinating past. The goldfields attracted people from Australia and from much further afield as many Scottish place names testify – particularly close to Sandra’s heart were Bowden and Melrose from her home turf in the Scottish Borders. In their goldrush heyday some of these towns boasted several thousand inhabitants with many hotels, shops, breweries etc. Most are long gone and those that remain are developing a tourist trade based upon their mining heritage. We stopped at a number of these sites – Menzies, Kookynie (“The Living Ghost Town”) Agnew (where all that was left was the pub, which was closed when we called) and, perhaps the most amazing of all, Gwalia.

When the Gwalia goldmine closed in 1964 – so did the town and many houses were deserted as they stood and gradually fell into decay. Some of these have been preserved (although not restored) to reflect what they were like when they were abandoned. It is now possible to wander from house to house to view how people lived in those days – and it must have been a hard life. The preservation has been very low key with none of the usual “interpretation panels” beloved of similar modern developments resulting in the viewer having to rely a combination of intelligence and imagination to paint pictures of the past – no bad thing.

The houses, usually incredibly small, had a wooden frame covered with the material that made The Outback famous – corrugated iron. The internal walls were covered with hessian sacking which was then covered with newspaper pasted to the hessian to form what seemed to me to be a pretty flimsy wall. These houses must have been like ovens during the scorching summer months and like ice boxes in the cold. In some of the houses the last internal decorating could be pretty accurately dated by the choice of wallpaper. The Kalgoorlie Miner seemed to be the wallpaper of choice as can be seen by the photo which shows the date Monday July 12 1937. This was actually on the wall of what I assume was the town barbershop which was in slightly better condition than some of the other buildings. If you double click on the photo to enlarge it you will be able to see reference to one of the big stories of the day – the disappearance of Amelia Earhart – all fascinating stuff.

We based ourselves in the small, but still thriving, mining town of Leonora staying for a couple of nights at the local campsite. Our trip should have continued along the south coast, however, beautiful as that area might (or might not?) have been, the weather was still a bit on the cool side and the decision to return to the Red Centre has paid dividends. As I type we are in the middle of The Great Victoria Desert, the largest desert in Australia and apparently the seventh largest desert in the world. The skies have returned to cloudless blue, the sun shines constantly throughout the day without hitting the intolerably high summer temperatures, it isn’t raining (a big plus for us as our trip seems to have been dogged by unseasonal rain) and it is possible to sit outside at night without having to raid the Winter Woollies bag for extra clothes – this is what we came for!

Mind you getting a beer has been a problem. As already reported the pub in Agnew was closed so we moved on to Leinster (a small, modern “company” town) where the pub was also shut – it didn’t open for business until 3pm. Before leaving for the desert it was essential to replenish our supplies of XXXX Gold in Laverton but the bottle shop didn’t open until noon so I had to queue with half of the local aboriginal population to wait for opening time. With beer supplies a bit healthier we hit the desert and after 300 k we arrived at the Tjukayiria Roadhouse and called in for a cold one only to be told “We don’t serve alcohol but you are welcome to finish any you have as it is illegal to take alcohol past here into Aboriginal lands”. We hid our supplies deep inside the vehicle and pressed on, set up our bush camp (see photo) and had a few refreshing beers – we deserved them.

We are heading eventually to Coober Pedy, a trip of almost 1800k mostly on good dirt roads. We had considered taking a short cut using the little used, and far more challenging, Anne Beadell track but was put off by the fact it required 5 permits, which could takes days or even weeks to organise, whereas our current route only requires two.

PS A few statistics. To keep us awake over the desert we started counting road traffic. Our tally at the end of Day One was:
Vehicles coming towards us – 13
Vehicles going the same way as us – 1
Crashed / Wrecked / Dumped vehicles at the side of the road - 129