26 July 2013 - Kulin Caravan Park, Kulin, Western Australia

That cold front arrived in the early hours of the morning bringing heavy rain, which continued on and on after we crawled out of bed this morning. I watched as our neighbours packed up in the hideous conditions, both clad from top to toe in bright yellow rain wear  They did not appear to be enjoying themselves much, and I dreaded that it would soon be us going through the same motions. However, joyfully, the rain desisted and we managed to stay dry while we broke camp and headed out of Albany.

Fifty kilometres north of Albany we arrived at Mt Barker, a small rural town of about 2,760 folk, neat as a pin and surprisingly full of relatively modern buildings. The administrative centre of the Shire of Plantagenet was settled soon after Albany, however it was not until the rail came through in 1889, that Mt Barker really took off. Today it is an agricultural service centre. We drove in and out of the town and on up the Albany Highway enjoying the lovely pastoral scenes sometimes interrupted by viticulture.  The Porongurup Range stood clearly to the east, impressive but alas, neglected by us. As we continued north, the Stirling Range was barely visible, the tops of the peaks, especially Bluff Knoll, shrouded in heavy rain cloud.

At Cranbrook, where we noted for the first time today, but now for the last, the grain silos and loading facilities adjacent to the rail, we turned north east and took the Great Southern Highway which runs along the Beverley – Albany rail. Soon the rain set in and we were met not just by the strong winds which had been buffeting the caravan but by driving sleet, or sleet-like rain. Visibility was appalling and we proceeded at snail pace, lights on and crawled into Katanning.

We had been keen to visit Katanning, for several reasons; one being that it is regarded as the centre of the Great Southern region and the other for the curious fact that it is home to many people from Christmas Island who settled in the area after finding work at the local abattoir. This means that most of those immigrants are Muslim, which has facilitated the Halal slaughter of animals at the abattoir here, thus enabling sale to Middle Eastern markets. Given the on-going controversy about “boat people”, illegal immigrants to Australia, particularly in the last week with the new or resurrected Prime Minister fiddling on the fringes, I found this all quite fascinating. I imagined a number of hijab clad, if not burka-clad, dusky women about their business in a very Australian country town and perhaps the minaret of a new mosque. Perhaps it was because the weather was so terrible and all these new Australians were wisely staying indoors, or perhaps it was because these people have all integrated into local society; but I saw no evidence of a Muslim society here, although we did see a takeaway food caravan operated by Mohammed someone, selling Malaysian food and being patronised by a very blonde, very Caucasian looking woman. Perhaps to a past resident, Katanning might seem very changed; to us it looked like any other Australian country town on an absolutely crappy day.

It should be noted here also, on the subject of the demise of animals, that Katanning is home to the largest country based sales yards for sheep sales. Just as we visited the cattle sales yards in Gracemere, just out of Rockhampton, one can watch from a special viewing platform, sheep being sold here every Wednesday.

We cracked open a can of ham and pea soup for lunch today; it was that kind of day. Over lunch we discussed route options, Chris having done considerable research last night, something he normally leaves to me. Option 1 had been to travel on from Albany to Esperance, up to Norseman, pop on up to Kalgoorlie, back to Norseman and across the Nullarbor. Option 2, which arose just a few days ago, was to travel from Albany to Wave Rock, then on to Kalgoorlie, down to Norseman, then a side strip, or not, to Esperance, then across the Nullarbor from Norseman. I had been pressing for Wave Rock for some time however acknowledged that it was an awful long way to travel just to see a rock. It seems however that the seed had been successfully planted and my wish was to come true. We are, after all, now on our way to Wave Rock although the route beyond is still undecided. I was therefore happy to agree to Chris’s suggestion that we continue north to Wagin and Narrogin, rather than cut across through Dumbleyung and lesser roads. A small compromise for getting my way after all.

Bart

Wagin is yet another service centre for the sheep and wheat farming carried on in the region. It did not come into existence until the Great Southern Railway was completed, the town proclaimed in 1898, nine years after the railway was completed. It suffered flood devastation in 1934 but today is a fine well established rural centre, watched over by the largest ram in the Southern Hemisphere, according to the tourist promotional literature. 

Chris and I frequently chuckle about Australian’s superlative description of their icons, although we did think that Wagin’s fibre glass sheep might be bigger than Gouburn’s Merino. So I subsequently did a little research and came up with the following:

·         Wagin’s ram, who is named ‘Bart”, and was constructed in 1985, is nine metres tall, thirteen metres long and six metres wide and weighs four tons.

·         Goulburn’s Big Merino, nicknamed ‘Rambo” by the locals, is fifteen metres tall, constructed of concrete and was erected in 1985.

By my simple deduction, the Big Merino wins hands down, but then perhaps, Rambo is female, a ewe? This would make Bart the biggest after all. Or perhaps the ‘biggest” relates to fibre glass structures only? The truth is that no one counts on silly tourists actually doing the comparisons.

In March each year, Wagin holds one of state’s largest agricultural shows, regularly attracting over 30,000 visitors; another superlative.

It  also has the second hand shop where we purchased a bag of golf clubs for the princely sum of $50, in anticipation of playing the longest golf links in the world. As we pulled out of Wagin, Chris did question whether the clubs were in fact for right handed players, and then decided, it didn’t really matter, because we would be equally handicapped if they were not. Later we discovered they were regular clubs, that the bag also contains tees and a small raggy towel, but no balls. We will have to track some down before the first tee-off.

We pressed on up the Great Southern Highway to Narrogin, rain falling from the heavens in response to the passionate prayers of the drought stricken grain farmers of the Wheat Belt. Narrogin is considered the commercial centre of the Wheatbelt South. It was also where we left the major highway and a good place to replenish our diesel tanks which were seriously depleted.

We turned onto the Williams – Kondinin Road, heading east on this recently upgraded road. The road continued over the gently rolling country, as it has all the day, although the grain and canola growing paddocks were larger than those further south. There were still many flocks of sheep, the young lambs far whiter than their mothers, and many still very new.

By the time we reached Kulin, we had covered three hundred and ninety two kilometres and Chris was yawning more often that I thought safe for a driver to do so. We pulled into this very modern camp ground and called the caretaker whose telephone number was advertised on the side of the ablution block. She soon arrived, collected our twenty five dollars after explaining the camp had been here for just three years having replaced the derelict one on the other side of town. Most people probably only stay the one night, on their way to or from Wave Rock. We are still about ninety kilometres away from Hyden where the rock and surrounding geological wonders lie; we should reach there tomorrow morning. In the meantime, the rain continues to fall and we are snug inside, glad to have the electric heater blasting out some warmth.