Leonora

We've ended up in Leonora for 3 nights (tonight's our last). After setting up on Saturday, we spent a lazy afternoon chatting to the neighbours and not much else.

Yesterday we drove the 4 ks to the ghost town of Gwalia 4 ks from Leonora. It's great. The mine wound up in Decemeber 1963 when they sent trains from Kalgoorlie to collect the miners. They walked away leaving the tiny tin and hessian shacks many of them had lived in. In 1993, locals from Leonora adopted the shacks, did them up (sort of) and they are now just standing there open for tourists to wander about if they wish.




I especially liked the Patronis Guest House with the kitchen, laundry, bathroom, and signgle mens lodgings sort of as t would have been. The town is rough and dusty, but really interesting and it's FREE.



Gwalia also has an excellent museum that we spent a bit of time in. The old guy taking our money was a bit of a museum piece himself-my guess was he was about 95 years old and when he had to give us the change of $20 from his own wallet in his pocket, it was the slowest thing I've ever seen. The museum was a good mix of mining and local history and we both enjoyed it a lot.



Today we drove to Laverton along the sealed Laverton/Leonora Highway and came home on the unsealed Old Leonora Road along the old rail line past a number of former town sites, the largest of these was Mt Morgans which had an old rail siding, a lovely brick Municipal Chambers building and a prison work camp (complete with prisoners) next door.

Mt. Morgans Municipal Chambers
Abandoned Mine Pit

We stopped at various lookouts, mine pits, Malcom Dam and then came home. We decided to treat ourselves to lunch in Laverton which was a bit of a mistake. The only thing open was Fred's Deli that sold Sensational Chicken and was a bit forgettable! The dam was nice-not much water, but a huge group (flock?) of emus grazing on the short green grass, plus roos (so nice to see a few live ones), pelicans, ducks and herons.hey