From 8 to 21 May 2022 - 3150 kilometers
The Great Central Road is a mostly unsealed Australian outback highway that runs 1,126 km from Laverton, Western Australia to Yulara, Northern Territory (near Uluru/Ayers Rock), it passes through a number of small communities on the way.
The Great Central Road has its origins in the early 1930s when Warburton was established as a missionary settlement, and supplies were delivered from Laverton via a rough bush track. Present conditions: Though still recommended only for four wheel drive vehicles, the road is now graded to a standard suitable for two wheel drive vehicles and caravans. It is on the most direct route from Perth to Uluru/Ayers Rock.
The Gwalia Gold Mine is located at Gwalia, a few kilometres south of Leonora, Western Australia.
It is operated by St Barbara Limited. The mine, with a depth of 1,600 metres in 2019, is Australia's deepest underground gold mine and the deepest trucking mine in the world, with a proposed depth of 2,300 metres by 2031. From its discovery to 2019, the mine produced 5.5 million troy ounces (170 t) of gold.
It was originally established by Welsh miners in the late 19th century and Herbert Hoover, the later President of the United States, served as the mine manager in its early days from May to November 1898.
Argh... I wanted to take a bus tour of the mine : impossible
because I had not 3 doses of Covid vaccine (but only 2 doses) !
The original, Sons of Gwalia Gold Mine Co. was formed in 1897 by George William Hall, major investor William Pritchard Morgan and others to own and operate the Sons of Gwalia mine. The mine gave its name to the adjacent town of Gwalia.
Gwalia is a former gold-mining town located 233 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia's Great Victoria Desert. Today, Gwalia is essentially a ghost town, having been largely deserted since the main source of employment, the Sons of Gwalia gold mine, closed in 1963.
Kalgoorlie-Boulder is a regional city (pop. 30,000 in 2018) in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. Kalgoorlie is a mining town with a long history that contains much of interest to the adventurous traveller. Over a hundred years of mining wealth has produced some beautiful old buildings that house pubs, post offices and general shops.
Leonora to Fremantle
Fremantle is a port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth.
Prior to British settlement, the indigenous Noongar people inhabited the area for millennia, and knew it by the name of Walyalup. Visited by Dutch explorers in the 1600s, Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829. The settlement struggled in its first decades, and in 1850, with the advent of penal transportation to the colony, Fremantle became Australia's primary destination for convicts. The convict-built Fremantle Prison operated long after transportation ended in 1868.
Fremantle played a key role in World War II as the largest submarine base in the Southern Hemisphere. Post-war immigration from Europe, particularly Italy, helped shape Fremantle's character, and it rapidly gentrified after hosting the 1987 America's Cup.
Today, Fremantle is recognised for its well-preserved Victorian and Edwardian streetscapes and convict-era heritage, and is known as a bohemian enclave with a thriving arts and culinary scene. It is now a World Heritage Site.
Day trip on the Swan river and arriving in Perth by boat.
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. The city has expanded outward from the original British settlements on the Swan River, upon which the city's central business district and port of Fremantle are situated. Perth is located on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, where Aboriginal Australians have lived for at least 45,000 years.
Captain James Stirling founded Perth in 1829 as the administrative centre of the Swan River Colony. It was named after the city of Perth in Scotland, due to the influence of Stirling's patron Sir George Murray, who had connections with the area. The city's population increased substantially as a result of the Western Australian gold rushes in the late 19th century. It has grown steadily since World War II due to a high net migration rate. Post-war immigrants were predominantly from Britain and Southern Europe, while more recent arrivals have led to a large population of Asian descent. Several mining booms in other parts of Western Australia in the late 20th and early 21st centuries saw Perth become the regional headquarters for large mining operations.
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