The night before we left Sandstone there was an amazing sunset. Hence the first photograph. We mentioned in the last blog that we bought some fresh lettuce from William a Chinese man who grows vegetables in Sandstone. When Chris opened the bag she was gobsmacked. There were about 8 different varieties of lettuce and salad vegetables (red, cos, butter, iceberg lettuce, spinach, rocket, bok choy and an unknown chinese leaf) they were so fresh they were amazing. We had GMan’s home made burgers and the most wonderful salad for dinner. We left Sandstone still sulking about Port losing to the Crows and stopped at the Windsor overnight stay just 74 kms west. Supposedly overnight, well it ended up two of course. When Chris was wandering about chasing an elusive bird she saw a Desert Sky Warrior ... read more

Wiluna Council has the Wedge Tail Eagle as their logo. What magnificent creatures these birds are. I have watched them for over 30 years and have tried many times to get a photograph of one in flight or on the ground. We have seen so many of them over the past three weeks and finally after all this time I achieved it today driving into Sandstone. GMan slowed the car, he knows my obsession with them, and called me deep from in Anne Perry's Pitt number 9 (google it) and I managed to get my camera up and ready to shoot - finally a photograph of a Wedgetail eagle I was happy with. Glorious creature. In the last blog we said we did not have the photographic equipment to provide a visual image of the night ... read more

As we mentioned at the end of the last blog we are camped at Malcolm Dam, 10 kilometres east of Leonora. I find it hard to believe that I lived in the region for over 25 years, albeit 180 kms away, and did not know about this place. Unlike Niagara Dam which is built in a rocky water course with a concrete wall, Malcolm dam is an earth wall and the water spreads out over a wide clay area. The wall is about 30 feet wide in the middle, more than enough for us to turn our car and caravan around, even far bigger rigs than ours. There are seats and shade shelters built on the dam wall as well as a big rubbish skip. Another skip is not far from where we are parked on ... read more

Chris has always been fascinated by cemetery's. You can learn so much about your history from them. Menzies cemetery is no different. It is in need of a good weed at the present time and I expect that this will happen at the end of spring. Even before entering the newly installed gates Chris dived off into the bush to photograph a cassia. The iron marker depicting the cemetery mentions a prospector who committed suicide after being bashed and robbed. An information sign inside the cemetery mentions that some of the people buried here died from typhoid, dysentery, heart problems, diabetes, exhaustion, pneumonia, mine accidents, suicide, burns and many other problems. Found it interesting that there was no mention of childbirth which is generally one of the main reasons young women died. Many of the graves ... read more

On the Wednesday night I noticed the lovely cloud formation just prior to the sunset and again on Thursday managed to get a good photo of the sunset itself. One thing which has me disappointed is that there have been very few birds so far this trip. At Rowles lagoon it is the nesting place for the white spotted black duck one of the most endangered ducks around. Didn't see a one. They must be up north with the grey nomads. We set off on Friday morning from Rowles intending to only travel about 46 kms and stay in the caravan park at Ora Banda and passed through some lovely bush land on the journey. When we arrived at about 9:30 am we looked at the CP set up, were not impressed. We had hoped to ... read more