LEINSTER LAGS ... a bit

W.A. roads are fantastic, at least the main ones are, in these mining areas. What a fabulous road from Sandstone to Leinster. Couldn’t help remembering when they used to run the London to Sydney car race through this area. From Perth, they’d scream up the Great Northern Highway, turn right at Mount Magnet, then south-east along the Agnew traffic lane to Youanmi and bash their way south through tracks, at break-neck speed, to Southern Cross; over the Great Eastern Highway and eventually Left-hand down onto a track to Norseman, across the Nullarbor and on to Sydney. I suppose those sort of races aren't allowed any more.

Speaking of which, rules that is, the absence of signs telling you not to go near the edge of chasms and gorges as you poke around the mining areas such as Afghan Rock, and Lawlors Lookout, is a great improvement: doesn't clutter up the scenery. Out here common sense still prevails. Common what? Ironically, the only extra item which clutters up the scenery and gets in the way of spectacular photos sometimes is a rubbish bin!

But, on these long straight roads, with minimal traffic, there’s plenty of time to observe and cogitate. All the flowering shrubs seem to be on the sides of the road … not many in the adjacent rangelands. Why is this so? Along the sides of the road today were expanses of purple shrubs, interspersed with yellow and lime-green, with the occasional stand of white everlastings, pink hakeas and orange grevilleas. QUESTION: Do you think the Tourist Authority, to lure more nomads, give the road constructors the seeds to plant as they upgrade the roads??? And then, as they grade along the gutters and the camber of the road, it sort-of cultivates them? If they do, it’s working very well. The operators must also observe when the soil type changes as different species grow in the different soil-type areas.

Well, as I said, there’s plenty of time ponder as you cruise along.

I like the GPS as it tells us the altitude. Today we ascended 100 metres up onto a plateau to pass by Depot Springs cattle station … great to see the change of vegetation as the mulga gave way to white-trunked eucalypts until we descended to the plains.

Everywhere you look in this Northern Goldfields area, you see massive mountains of tailings, where prospecting firms have been digging up the earth and discarding it looking for the elusive minerals … mainly gold and nickel here. How much do they find? And there are hundreds of amateur fossickers heading out with their metal detectors every day. It’s a disease!

However, Leinster had an earthquake last year which stuffed-up BHP’s mine; it’s working at only a quarter of its capacity now. But is it any wonder? With everyone boring great holes into the earth I think ‘earthquake’ is the planets’ method of retaliation!