It was early to bed that night, I had a long way to travel tomorrow. But first I had to read a few of Jeannie’s chapters…
Heading east from Perth
Monday 1st December: let the next road adventure begin
Hooray! A bright and sunny day and the open roads beckon. Wandered around to Avis to pick up my Astra only to find that it had transmogrified into a Holden V6 Commodore, very nice too in its shiny tomato red livery. I’m sure if I booked a small car expecting an upgrade, the upgrade would never happen. But to date my unexpected success rate has been 100 percent.
Once again George had room to waltz and tango around in the boot. Confident that I could navigate east, I headed out of town for York. First problem – why do roads which appear straight on the map in reality have T junctions with unknown destinations signposted rather than somewhere you want to go? Drove through a ‘drive-thru’ bottle shop for the car park at the rear where I turned the map upside down and every which way and decided that the right fork was probably what I wanted. Hallelujah… it was. By lunchtime I had passed through Mundaring (the Aboriginal name for a high place on a high place) and reached the outskirts of York, no wait it was York… just one slightly dusty road with a few tiny residential areas clustered off and around. So who had built York and why? Turning to the well-thumbed pages of my guide book, I note that…
In 1830 European settlers from the Swan River Colony explored the country east of the Darling Range and were delighted to find the Avon Valley [where] land was grabbed eagerly and the district has been a successful agricultural region ever since. Situated by the Avon River, York experienced a short boom in the 1890s when gold was discovered in the east of the state. At that time York was the easternmost rail terminus and the last source of fresh water but was soon passed by when both water and rail reached Kalgoorlie.5
Excuse the slight digression, as I have just read ‘water’ and found the following information relevant as the engineering feat that was CY O’Connor’s water pipeline would accompany me along stretches of my drive. The 330-mile pipeline was constructed at the end of the 19th century to take water from Perth to the goldfields at Kalgoorlie and is still in use today, providing water to towns along the route before reaching its destination. Water was sourced by damming the Helena River, Perth and creating storage in the Mount Charlotte Reservoir, Kalgoorlie. The concrete pipe sits above ground where its simplicity belies the life-giving properties of its contents. Maybe as an engineering project it’s not as awe inspiring as some, but it scores highly for its utility. And it sort of kept me company as I clocked up the miles.
Back in York, lunch was enjoyed in splendid isolation in the courtyard of the Settlers Inn, a delightful late 19th-century building adorned with some wonderfully evocative sepia photographs. My lunch spot was not the only building of note along this stretch of road. Historically, when the town lost its rail status to nearby Northam, which became the major rail junction to the goldfields, it also lost the need for urban expansion. Consequently, the town’s original buildings remained peacefully unspoilt. My lunch-time musings drifted back to the people in the photographs. Close to York lies the town of Beverley, so I wondered if these early settlers had come from Yorkshire. Possibly no, as not too far away Kelmscott managed to scotch that theory. English spellings of indigenous place-names co-exist alongside settler developed and named towns, providing an historical cultural mix.
After my thoughtful lunch, I visited the Old Courthouse and Gaol, a small museum complex which was well preserved and well presented and once again provided evidence of the terrible treatment meted out against the hapless and bewildered Aboriginal people. But here was further evidence of the cultural mix, as it wasn’t only the indigenous population which felt the might of the law. York, the first developed inland town in Western Australia, also had unruly members of the white settler community and convicts to contend with. Therefore, a strong police presence was needed. Those in custody were chained together with the chains attached to heavy metal collars, still visible today. All very grim and it did generate an involuntary ugh shudder.
Seeking a change of tempo, I made my way towards York’s best known attraction, its Motor Museum. I parted with a tiny entrance fee, turned the corner and stood looking at an incredible line-up of approximately 150 vintage and classic cars, most of which were said to be in working order. The vehicles represented the ‘evolution of motor transport’, and had been amassed by the museum’s founder, Peter Briggs. Here were examples of mechanical innovation from the earliest eras of the combustion engine through to their more modern successors. In addition to cars I had never heard of, such as the 1919 Australian Six Tourer (‘Made in Australia, by Australians for Australia’) there were several old friends, such as an evocative MGTC.
Reading the museum blurb, I discovered that the owner’s mother had raced them, which caused an aah moment as I had learnt to drive in one. It was thanks to the leakiness of the TC that for years after I would involuntarily lift my legs when driving through puddles, a reflex that worked better as a passenger than driver. HKO 445… whatever happened to you? More nostalgia, this time in the sensuous curvy shape of an MGA, the car which followed the TC in my life and has never been forgotten: I’m not sure that I ever got the distance between steering wheel and front bumper quite right, but it was such fun to drive. Next in my life came the MGB, but so did babies, and the sporty MG had to give way to a sensible Renault 5. Not quite the same.
As I wandered amongst this intriguing (but slightly dusty) collection of cars, ‘Peter’ came up to me and we began to chat, correction, I listened. Re-reading what follows, I seem to have forgotten the car aspect of anything Peter said and written about his personal life. He said that he was married to Swiss-born Ursula, who wasn’t wildly keen on remote York as she kept asking him why he wasn’t back with her, rather than with these ‘dusty’ (my insertion) cars. Yesterday he had won the veteran Australian fencing championship… he was born in Portsmouth… went to Kings School, Canterbury… played Benenden (I might have raised my eyebrows as I thought this an all girls school, but perhaps that was the point)… has a son also named Peter (although I think Piers might be the correct spelling)… misses the English sense of humour… and on and on he charmingly went! I was in the museum much longer than intended (and not just listening but also looking) and I found the whole experience jaw-droppingly fascinating. I can now add Motor Museums to my list of things done well in Australia, in addition to botanical gardens and art galleries.
For years after this encounter I assumed that I had been talking to Peter Briggs, founder and ex-racing driver, but it was only when I picked up a copy of The Western Australian newspaper dated 15th March 2016 that I realised I had been listening to Peter Harbin, curator and ex-racing driver. It was with sadness that I read that Peter Harbin had recently died. Here was confirmation of his life-long passions of cars and fencing and a description of how from 1999 he had been the curator of the York Motor Museum. In an endeavour to breathe life into the cars, Peter had organised events to get them out onto the streets of York (perhaps I’d been looking at outback dust on their bonnets). The obituary concluded with: ‘here was an English endearing eccentric on the fringes of the outback’.
My brain is still struggling to come to terms with the fact that in Albany, Western Australia, in March 2016, I had stopped for a cup of coffee and randomly selected this one newspaper from a pile of reading material. I feel very privileged to have met Peter and appreciate that his enthusiasm for anything associated with the whiff of Castrol GTX and burning rubber, made him an ideal guardian of those magnificent historic cars: requiescat in pace.
But back in 2003, what could so easily have felt like my release from the above chatter was in fact a departure made out of necessity. I had yet to find a room for the night and crossed the road to find Peter’s recommendation, The Imperial. And there on Avon Terrace it stood, in all its Victorian ironwork glory, with a
pub downstairs and rooms around the upstairs balcony. The room rate was 70 dollars, including food: an absolute bargain. The 19th-century exterior was mirrored in its 19th-century interior, the bedroom not much more than a metal bed in a broom cupboard, and no en suite just a short hike over creaky floorboards to the ladies bathroom. Kevin, the proprietor, wanted me to have the pick of the rooms, but as the curtains were falling down in all the rooms he showed me, there seemed to be no particular hierarchical merit to attract me, so chose what I thought was the lightest and airiest. Fortunately I had a small safety pin about my person and it did a grand job of preserving my nighttime modesty as it fought to hold the curtains both up and together. However, I was at a loss as to how to solve the problem of no bedroom key… so slept with one eye open and George standing guard by the door.
Undeterred by the air of decrepitude, I sat outside for my inclusive curry supper, getting bitten to blazes. The one and only staff member kept calling me “M’lady” which made me want to say, “But my name’s not Penelope” as images of Thunderbirds circa the 1960s kept flashing before my eyes. I wasn’t sure if the now mentally christened ‘Parker’ was p**s-taking… would probably guess that he was… although he did seem quite chirpy in the way that he addressed his one and only customer of the evening. He did an excellent selling job on the feast he was about to serve, announcing that it would consist of ten courses.
“Wow,” said an amazed I.
“Yes,” said a cheery he. “Bread, butter, vegemite, rice, sauce, meat…” went the list.
‘Very droll, Parker,’ thought Lady P.
All in all it was a surprisingly happy and satisfying stay – just had to ignore the layers of (more) dust and the fact that the lace cover on the dark oak 1930s dressing table was an off-cut of carpet anti-slip stuff. For all my concerns about a lack of key, I slept soundly, obviously satisfied that delegating security to an inert suitcase was a normal thing to do.
Kevin had said that breakfast would be available from eight. With a busy day ahead, I rose early, showered in a facility reminiscent (visually and odour-wise) of a girls’ hockey club changing room and at eight-fifteen ventured downstairs… it was like the Marie Celeste. With no sign of food, not even a packet of cereal, I gathered up my belongings and crept out into the day, the clock by now registering two minutes past nine as I exited to the sound of silence. Later I discovered a voicemail message from Kevin (in York) asking me to call him, which I didn’t, as he was probably asking me to “make breakfast if you’re first up”… I hope it was nothing serious and to this day I don’t know why I didn’t return his call. This omission will haunt me (I’m certain I paid my bill) as in 2014 I was saddened to read that the hotel had closed ‘permanently’. To be honest, I was more than a little surprised that it had limped along for so long. Could it be that Kevin is now a distant memory in a few people’s minds? A minute’s silence is needed here.
Oh dear, there is a further post-script. I had found my stay in York so endearing that I revisited in 2016, hoping that in the intervening two years the hotel had been snapped up and new life breathed into its iron-work glory. Alas, the permanent as in closed ‘permanently’ was still holding fast. It’s a really beautiful building which deserves to be preserved. Any takers?
Tuesday 2nd December: off into the wilds
Having bid a nostalgic farewell to a slumbering York, I headed south driving out through Beverley to the Wheatbelt towns of Brookton and Corrigin where I stopped for a snack. Corrigin is no oil painting, it’s tiny, flat and utilitarian but the dog cemetery signifies its soft underbelly. Pulling over, I got out and began wandering amongst an assortment of doggy graves, here lying side-by-side were pampered pooches and working hounds all remembered with great affection, as the lines of verse and assortment of well-chewed toys eloquently showed. Keeping guard over these memorials to man’s best friend, sat a very fine statue of a proud working dog. His upright alert countenance signified Corrigan’s claim to fame: it is the ‘home of the dog in the ute’. Once upon a time all utility vehicles had a utility dog slipping and sliding about, or sometimes tethered, in the open back. Now in these days of health and safety dogs are more commonly seen sitting inside the cab staring out through the windscreen, wistfully remembering the whoosh of the wind in their ears and the nostril-flaring intoxication of passing heady scents: the stuff of canine dreams.
After this doggy interlude, I was drawn to a large agricultural building which housed a supermarket, I wandered inside in search of water and a snack and realised that this was truly a ‘one stop shop’, as it sold everything for the pastoralist and the housewife but it looked as if neither had passed through the doorway in many a decade. Everything appeared to be old and dusty and certainly end-of-line and the musty mints I bought reinforced my impression. On reflection, perhaps I’m a bit slow on registering my surroundings, as possibly the parched landscape of the agricultural area through which I was driving had something to do with the layers of dust I kept encountering…
Having shopped, I then pushed open a creaky door to the Café Papier Mâché… a little bit surreal. In a barn-like space I gazed upon some bits of art paper and twiddly things for making decorations, one or two objet d’art and a really eclectic assortment of tables and chairs plus a huge table laden with paper, crayons, etc, to occupy the younger coffee consumer. Amid this creative vortex, I sat and enjoyed a homemade Florentine and mocha for my breakfast and was enchanted by the slip of a girl who, seemingly, managed the venture. As Corrigin is 235km from Perth, I guess it’s important to work in ways that will keep the community vibrant and cohesive. I left hoping that the coffee shop would prosper… but it was a really incongruous find in the middle of a very serious farming community. I’m sure everyone enjoys some downtime with a cup of coffee and company, but I wasn’t really sure about the papier-mâché aspect. Checking on-line twelve years later, it looks like the venture may have succeeded under a rebranding as the Mallee Tree Café and Gallery with an emphasis on selling furniture and ornaments carved from the wood of the mallee tree (a multi-stemmed eucalypt). I hope the young girl who served me is still the driving force behind the project.
Revived by the sugar-rush of my breakfast, I continued my journey through the wheat fields of Western Australia – yesterday, today, tomorrow – vast, vast, vast. Huge machinery was busily employed bringing in the harvest, the air of urgency tangible as storms were predicted. Picked up Country Hour on the radio and prepared to settle back and listen to an hour of Tammy Wynette – instead it was all about goat mortalities during transport, the plight of dairy farmers and the optimism of wheat farmers – which political commentators felt was misplaced. The transmission also covered issues such as the closure of local hospitals, disaffected youth and internal squabbling within the political parties: home from home, really.
Arrived at Hyden about oneish and refuelled, bought more water and then drove round to the Wave Rock Motel to check in. Refreshed and revived, I headed out again in the direction of my goal for the day: Wave Rock. Wow. The name is no mere whimsical fancy. The granite formation is an inviting 15 metres high and 110 metres long, and I didn’t look overly hard for sign posts respectfully asking tourists not to climb the rock, so up to the top I went. And what views greeted me. Both peering down over the edge of the splendidly uniform curl and gazing out across an area pitted with salt lakes and dotted with scrubby bush, either way it was hauntingly majestic. By now I should be used to seeing horizons of global proportions, but once again a panoramic view of not a lot was awe inspiring. In the distance, the only blip on the horizon was the rock formation, The Humps, where Mulka’s Cave can be found with its mystical hand imprints. An Aboriginal legend tells how the largest and highest prints belong to Mulka, a giant whose cross-eyes prevented him from hunting with a spear… so he caught and ate children. Perhaps that’s the magic. You look at nothing, but ‘nothing’ hides a whole universe… such as child-eating giants.
Investigating my smooth rocky surroundings, there in a sheltered hollow grew a lone sandalwood tree, a gnarled reminder of the days when these precious trees were plentiful – the days before settlers cut them down. I’m not an arboreal expert, the tree was labelled. Time to retreat and as the climb up had been far from arduous I thought the descent would be likewise. Silly me, my ‘stick to anything’ shoes suddenly slipped into ice-skating mode. Having climbed up feeling tall, nimble and lithe I descended hunched, crab-like and doddery – feeling ever more pitiful as words of encouragement were wafted in my direction by a dad whose brood of small children scooted around my ankles fearlessly. As did a number of agile lizards, which obviously thought this lumbering lady was no threat. Having made it safely to the bottom, a cool drink was in order before my next escapade. Sipping my drink, I decided that it was probably just as well I hadn’t climbed Uluru. Had I done so, my name would probably have been added to one of those chilling plaques.
Refreshed, I walked the 1.5km circuit to see the Hippo’s Yawn rock and oddly the few people who had been on Wave Rock just seemed to evaporate and I was on my own and a bit spookily on my own, with not even a scuttling lizard for company. I like to think that I didn’t keep looking over my shoulder, but I might have done so once or twice. The track led through fairly dense scrub, which I clomped across, over and under in double-quick time. Emerging from the thicket (had I been on the right track?) I stood before a yawning hippo. It didn’t require any stretch of the imagination to understand how this gaping void in the granite had acquired its name. Like its oceanic granite cousin, it couldn’t have been called anything else, as here was the head of a larger than life yawning hippo. I would like to have stood in its gaping maw for a true touristy photo, but there was nobody around to do the honours for me. So I just stood and pretended.
Travels with George Page 19