contd.
The area around the ora bandi pub was just like a old wild west salon type place,covered in dust [not open] old barrels showing the parking area as large as a football pitch,it was just west off the GOLD FIELDS HIGHWAY on the coolgardie north road, north of coolgardie west of KALGOORLIE Dave went a bit off route to show me what the old type of “truck stops” were like also if you like dust that is the road to be on how the drivers put up with it is another story that road is still used by the odd cattle truck but mostly tourist
BACK ON TARMAC,to be honest i had seen enough of the real off road [tracks] that is what they were, with a barrel left where a turnoff to a [station] cattle ranch or a mine site will be ,just like the middle east drivers had to use so i read.
Old road signs all shot up ,no one around ,no point staying so we made tracks ,
The roads seem to be endless ,you look far into the horizon and the track ROADS just peters out to nothing,one sign i did see said next service 100 ks,[i might be getting our timeline/route a bit out of line] but i did not write it all down at the time.
we were heading along the Great eastern highway
The time we spent at the KALGOORI mine was like looking in to one of the wonders of the world it made you feel so high up, but it was the other way round ,like looking to the depths of the earth the massive dumper trucks looked like little dinkie toys it was difficult to count them as they were all following each other up like a massive snake working their way to the top. we were the only 2 people at the site viewing area and the other viewing center was closed where i think you went closer to the machines that both of us would have liked, i made do with what i had seen however ,yes the ice cream van was there,true…in fact the drive up to the visitors center is very steep you needed a crawler
On our way down the GOLD FIELDS highway towards KAMBALDA i was amazed to see a massive LAKE lake "lefory "small yachts were sailing around it was sort of surreal after the heat and dust not 3 hours before,we also had a feed from a outfit called RED ROOSTER.yes guess what their product was ,DAVE also had the air con working while sitting eating [result]
I did not realise we were heading into the wheat growing area until after a drive of some distance i could see like massive blue coloured type structures in the distance i was a loss as what they were and DAVE said wait until we got close , and it was worth the wait it was massive, i mean massive mounds of wheat,covered in tarps they must have been at lest half a kilometer long and the height was as high as 60foot at least [a guess] but i could imagine a 40ft and 20ft container on their end it looked about right, ,you could not see the width of the mounds how they did it i do not know but remarkable all for export, normally wheat is stored in massive concrete towers,the port of ALBANY is about due south around a 1,000 ks from where we where at the moment a long way off it is one of the main grain export ports on the southern coast.
we were heading south it was getting time to find somewhere to camp away from any noise and secure you would think that you would be able to just run off the tarmac road into the bush and just park where you like not so [ if you went in there the truck would be a mess ] there are big drain ditches running each side of the road like storm drains and bush every where .
Another thing i had not seen one animal, cattle, sheep, nothing and not one wild animal i thought i would have seen a kangaroo ,not even road side crows.it was getting close to dusk so parking was essential luckily a lay -bye that you could drive through and in to the bush clearing came up DAVE drove well in so no road noise,it looked as if it was a old mine area
as piles of tailings were scattered around in fact there was like a circle of flat hard packed sand surrounded by tailings it looked so flat as if it had been polished ,strange,
We started setting the camp up getting the jenny away but chained to a bush ,roof up ,nearly ready and i said to DAVE i have to take the shovel ,he knew what i meant and he said do not wander off beyond those tailings.
Once i had got settled in to a squat, i can tell you i was not happy as you can only see in front of you not behind so i was banging the shove all around me [good job i was used to the SPANISH and ITALIEN loos] to deter me thinking scorpions, snakes, believe me your mind plays tricks on you .
I had just about settled down ,a out of the blue i hear this scream shout VIC, VIC,get HERE QUICK,bring the shovel QUICK
with shorts half up and down i run over to DAVE AND HE SHOUTED ,STOP DONT MOVE,he is stood right by his door to the cab with his legs apart ,he said, that i did slowly hand me the shovel by the handle,he takes it and lifts it up high and in one swift movement makes a chopping movement between his boots ,there was this now cut in half pure black snake not that big but deadly if bitten,he was lucky.
That was it for me no more squatting i did not need to go after that ,what i did not know until last week reading on trucknet that he had had a similar experience years ago i am glad he did not tell me before we left as i do not think i would have went on the out back trip that we were on.but i was then well hyped up.