Coogarie to Kings Lake

12-16-08

This is one of the old gold mining towns in the area. This is an early morning scene.

They had some rather fancy bars and hotels eh?

You can tell that there was MONEY when this place was built.

This pipe is what made it all possible I guess. This is a piece of the original pipe that runs along the highway in most places all the way to Perth.

Almost 350 miles long.

There was a little sign that said viewing area and a picture of a camera. I took the trail and ended up on this cap rock area overlooking a huge plain of mostly trees.

The one thing that they don’t tell you about Australia is the damn flies. When I would get to a really nifty area I would take off my helmet and almost right away a fly would land on my face. They walk around but I will say that they don’t bite. They sure take the pleasure out of being outside. Though. I often have to take a nap and when I do I have to have my helmet on and have the face shield down. Which is a bummer as you can imagine.

A nice little reminder to take it easy.

OK Jack, here is the first lizard I got a chance to take a picture of. He was crossing the road and with those little leggs he has, he was rather slow and gave me enough time to turn around and come back and get a picture. I have seem a few little ones before but they were fast and not a chance for a photo op.

The famous rabbit fence.

Not sure what the Female Emu is al about, and didn’t ask….

I did get a shot of this very small flowering plant just behind that shed.

They have planted along the sides of the highway in most places.

Famous for the ‘Wave’.

I spotted this guy coming into town and waved him down. He is from Japan and had his bike shipped over. It was set up nice with very nice panniers. He was packing several liters of gasoline/petrol here. The said he could go about 400 km on the27 liters he could carry. My big tank is 22liters I think and it should be able to get me about 400 too, or at least that is my thinking as I am getting close to 20km/liter.

He looked at my bike and exclaimed at the 650cc size. He said his is a 250cc. He showed me how you look under the exhaust pipe and on the cylinder is cast the size in cc of the cylinder. He said that you can only travel 60 km/hr on most roads, in Japan, so you don’t need a big bike. He said he has to wave all the traffic around him as he is so slow when traveling here.

I sure liked his headlight and little windshield. He said it kept the wind off his chest and up to his neck.

On the way out to the Wave, is a collection of metal art scupture along with some history. I liked this truck.

And this sign. You might notice that there is a picture of him with a three hitch goat wagon….

The Wave….

I thought I would try my hand at surfing with my size 13 boots.

I met this lady from Switzerland and we swapped cameras to take photos of us. She is really nice and is over here for nine weeks holiday. She said she worked for a Pharmaceutical company and developed drugs for the stomach and intestinal tract.

I sure like the way that Europeans take those nice long vacations. You can really do something with nine weeks unlike our two-week events. Looking back, I should have stayed the night in Hayden and we could have shared a room. It would have save some money and would probably been a lot more fun than riding on down to Kings Lake. But if I had done that, you would not have the next dog log about the Great Grain Train event. An old dog can  always dream (if nothing else).

Along the top of the wave they made this little wall to divert the water to the little pond you can just barely make out in the background.

I am in serious wheat country now. Most of the crops looked good but some were pretty thin and short. This crop looked really good. There are a lot of grain storage areas here as well. There is a lot that is put up in those big outdoor piles that are covered.