Day 1 - Perth to Lake Giles via Southern Cross

Wednesday, 28th May 2014

We got the Pajero back from having the suspension upgrade, bullbar and winch fitted, clocked up our 500kms for the free check and put it back in to have the rear springs changed. We did this because the original set of rear springs didn’t gain us anything. So now where to go…….. The Foundation Day long weekend was just around the corner, fortunately we’d already booked off a couple days before the long weekend – extra long weekend here we come. We enjoyed the trip out around Southern Cross over Easter so we decided to head out that way again, camp at the lovely spot we found last time and head on up to Mt Elvire.

We packed the car the night before so we could just wake up, have breaky and hit the road 🙂

The run to Perth to Southern Cross was straight forward as you’d expect. The only excitement was just out of Cunderdin. We were coming up behind a caravan, nothing unusual about that; we pass a cop car heading the other way, nothing unusal about that. A couple of minutes later the cops come flying up behind us lights flashing; hmmmm…… we’re not speeding. We slow down and pull off but he screams past us, catches the van and pulls him over. As we drive past we could see that the van was a bit run down, broken windows, graffiti on the sides and it looked like a house of cards about to be blown over if someone sneezed. We conclude the cop must have thought it either unsafe or stolen.

At Southern Cross (SC) we top up the tank and fill up our 3 roto pax and our tummies for the journey into the scrub. Next, we head out to Bullfinch some 37kms north west of SC and a few kms out of Bullfinch we turn onto the Bullfinch Evanston road.

We travel past Lake Deborah, a salt lake which is mined for your fish and chip salt by WA Salt Supply. The landscape is dotted with little salt lakes, and small “puddles” of water after some recent rain. Hard to believe we were travelling through the same countryside as 6 weeks ago, it is soo much greener and the vegetation fuller. Oh what a little rain can do.

They say the mining boom is over but there is evidence of mining and the search for new mines everywhere. Core sampling holes, you could create golf courses out of them. Not to mention the mines that are already operating in the area. Their haul roads cross gazzetted roads frequently and they have right of way, we have to stop and check before crossing. This trip we encountered a couple of road trains, gee they throw up some dust!

We pull in to camp around 3.30pm, have a cuppa and relax before setting up camp. The wind whipped up and the temperature started dropping. Time to set up camp, we forgot 6 weeks on and the sun sets earlier; light was fading fast and we still had tea to cook. Camp set up, tea and dishes done we settle down to relax and enjoy the night sky before hitting the sack. It was going to be a cold night, the weather man said 4deg in Kalgoorlie and we were further inland – Brrrrrrrrrrr

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