To Menzies and Lake Ballard

From Kalgoorlie we headed north on the Goldfields Highway to Menzies and then to Lake Ballard. Artist Antony Gormley created a collection of 51 steel sculptures standing over ten square kilometres on the white salt of Lake Ballard, about 780 kilometres north-east of Perth.  From the foundry in Perth the 51 sculptures were transported to Lake Ballard and installed by a team of 18 volunteers over a four day period.

Lake Noondie on Bulga Downs Station

Leaving Lake Ballard we headed north and camped on the edge of Lake Noondie, 15 kilometres north of Bulga Downs Station. The lake was named after the nearby Noondie Hill, mentioned by surveyor John Forrest (1849-1918) during his 1869 expedition to find the missing explorer Ludwig Leichhardt (1813-1848).

Contradiction Well

Into Sandstone

Arriving in Sandstone on Sunday morning we found ‘Dinky Di’, one of the town’s characters, ready to dispense tea, coffee and a sampling of bush herbs.

Sandstone Heritage Brewery

London Bridge

After our morning cuppa with ‘Dinky Di’ we travelled out to London Bridge, a few kilometres south-east of the town.  It is a natural bridge formed of weathered basalt, believed to be about 350 million years old, and part of a larger formation about 800 metres long, varying in height from around 3 to 10 metres. The bridge is getting thinner and thinner and will eventually fall.

To Meekatharra

We headed out of Sandstone on the dirt road towards Meekatharra. First stop was at the Vermin Proof Fence.

Barlangi Rock

A little while later we stopped at Barlangi Rock.

Mount Yagahong

And then, further on, at Mount Yagahong.

26th Parallel

Nor-Westers have a licence to be stereotypical, outback Australians, get tax concessions, drink copious quantities of the amber fluid, and like the heat, flies and remoteness.

Meekatharra

We refuelled at Meekatharra and topped up the water tanks in the ‘Silver Bullet’.

Meekatharra is the major supply centre for the pastoral and mining in the Murchison region. The townsite is 35 kilometres north-north-east of Nannine where the first gold rush on the Murchison Goldfield occurred in 1890. In late 1895, prospectors Meehan, Porter and Soych pegged a claim near Meekatharra Spring, the aboriginal name of a watering point that had appeared on maps since 1885. It is from this spring that the townsite’s name is derived. It is believed that the name means ‘place of little water’.

After a spectacular blowout of the driver’s side tyre on the ‘Silver Bullet’ and the time taken to change wheels, it was clear that we would not make Newman, our intended destination.

Yannerie Pool

We pulled in to Yannerie Pool, a level, grassed area next to a permanent pool of water on Bulloo Downs Station, only a few hundred metres off the Great Northern Highway.

Tropic of Capricorn

After stopping for photos at the Tropic of Capricorn we met up with Matt and his family in Newman.  He had passed us during the night and camped at the Newman Caravan Park.

Newman

Newman sits on what was originally regarded as marginal cattle country. It was built in the 1960s by the Mount Newman Mining Company, following the discovery of rich iron deposits on nearby Mount Whaleback. The discovery marked the start of the resource boom in Western Australia in the 1970s. The town takes its name from nearby Mount Newman, named in honour of A.W. Newman (1866-1896), an early surveyor/explorer who died of typhoid fever just before reaching the area in 1896.

 

Go to Karijini.

Return to Mulkas Cave to Kalgoorlie.

 

 

© Kim Epton 2014-2026
802 words, 41 photographs.

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