First week on the road Home to Kookynie

Its great to be on the road again this time its South Australia the early plan was to go via the east Murchison gold fields and try to find that first gold nugget. But as we all know best layed plans come un stuck,, when we got to Yalgoo the dirt road to Paynes Find was closed ,and not wanting to be fined it meant we had to go on to Mt Magnet and then Sandstone. But first one little detour to Jokers Tunnel which we found quite interesting so we decided to spend the night.

there is light at the end of this tunnel

the history of the tunnel goes back to 1896 when a prospector found a small amount of gold and then it was sold to an Englishman and he brought 60 men out to dig into the hill and it ended up going right though  to the other side for on gold at all, hence the name Jokers Tunnel.

the other end

                                               looking from Jokers tunnel across the lake

                                            on the road from the tunnel to our camp

After a soft rainy night we left our camp to head straight into a great hail storm, we had to drive very slowly as we could not see to pull of the road the rain and hail were quite heavy.We finally arrived at Sandstone and a little way out of town we found an old mine site and set up camp for a very wet and windy night.When we woke the next morning the rain had gone so we went for a walk and found a really great spot and set up camp to do a bit of bird watching and prospecting. The bird watching was a lot more profitable.

                                                   Red capped Robin

                                           London Bridge a rock formation near where we camped

                                           The old state battery near Sandstone

                                           An old well on the Sandstone road
After three nights its time to move on so its of to Leonora via the old Agnew road. What a fantastic trip checking out all the history. We found it so amazing that some of these old towns had four or five pubs and even sometimes a brewery. It makes me wonder if our grand children or there children will go to places like Mt Newman Tom Price etc and find them as ghost towns in the future. On arriving at Leonora we drove out to Malcolm Dam on the recommendation of Fozzie and found it lived up to his standard, Great spot.

                                                                  Agnew

                                                     Malcolm Dam thanks Fozzie
Malcolm dam was only a one night stop then it was of to another dam called Niagara which is near a living ghost town named Kookynie. We set up camp at the dam and met some really nice people John and Delores and there daughter Bri who where also traveling with Russell.John was a prospector as well and he took Geoff out for the afternoon to give him a few pointers, They didn't have any luck but Geoff seems to be getting the hang of it. While Geoff was gone I had a great day doing not very much a little walk,a little cooking, and a lot of reading over a glass of red because it was bloody cold.

                                                   An old wreck at Kookynie

   Niagara dam was built in 1897 to provide water for the near by town of Kookynie, but it was never used as the mines at Kookynie had a lot more water than the town and the steam engines and the mines could use. It was also the reason for the minds closure as they could not keep the water out.