Hi all, I hope you and yours are doing well. Today we continue with Part 4 of our Midwest Goldfields Wildflower trundle.
After our stay at Wooleen Station, we returned south to Mullewa and then turned east on the Geraldton Mt Magnet Road. I thought at this point I should show you the map again.
There were lots of mining trucks on the road going east. You really need to be careful on the road, especially if wanting to overtake. We reached Yalgoo around 10amand visited another one of Monsignor Hawes' churches - the Dominican Chapel of St Hyacinth Holy Trinity Church built during 1920-22 for the Dominican Sisters who were brought to Yalgoo to run a school. The chapel was the smallest church designed by Hawes. It was restored by Shire of Yalgoo in 1980. Unfortunately you can only view the church from the outside. The chapel is a small and simple structure in Inter-War Romanesque style, with a terracotta roof and masonry and timber framed bell tower, and is all that remains of a larger complex of buildings. The chapel contains examples of Hawes’s handmade arts and crafts influenced artworks.Local carpenter Hendry Jermy built the convent school. Most of the materials came from the old convent in the near-derelict town of Day Dawn near Cue. The school opened in February 1922 with 23 students and ran till 1950. Two stone chimneys which you can see in the foreground are all that remain of the school which was dismantled and used to construct a shearing shed on a nearby property.
After having lunch and fuelling up in Mt Magnet, we continued east towards Sandstone. Along the way we stopped to take photos of the magnificent Royal Mulla Mulla - ptilotus rotundifolius which grows from 60cm to 2 metres and has huge fluffy flowers. It occurs naturally in the drier regions of Carnarvon, Gascoyne, Little Sandy Desert, Murchison and the Pilbara in Western Australia.
There were still lots of mining trucks on the road. We arrived in Sandstone late afternoon and booked into the Alice Atkinson caravan park. We have stayed here before - it is very quiet and well presented. We were hoping the hotel would be open for dinner, but sadly it is closed down. The community wanted to buy it but the asking price was too much. However the café located in the old post office and telegraph building is open for breakfast and lunch.
We had two nights in Sandstone - so we made the next day our exploring day. After pancakes for breakfast and doing the washing and a bit of cleaning in the van we explored the Heritage Drive, which only takes half a day. We had visited the Visitor Centre the day before and picked up maps and information.
Prior to the arrival of Europeans the area was the home to the Wongi and Yamagee peoples. The first European into the area was John Forrest in 1869. The goldrushes of the 1880s led to the opening up of the Murchison area. In 1894 prospector Ernest Shillington discovered gold about 20km south of the present day Sandstone. The town was officially gazetted in 1906. Between 1906-1912 the town had a population of between 6000-8000, and the town had 4 hotels and 2 banks. The railway line reached town in 1910. The town's decline coincided with the outbreak of WW1 in Europe. Many miners left to serve overseas. Many never returned and others, seeing the declining fortune of mines, drifted away from the area. By 1919 the population was only 200.
Today it is a small centre for the surrounding pastoral leases and stopover for tourists and gold prospectors. (info with thanks from the Sandstone Visitor Centre)
The heritage Trail includes locations around town, as well as a leisurely 18km marked self-guided Heritage Drive. Head out of town on the Paynes Find Road and then turn onto Menzies Road.
First stop is Contradiction Well, built by the State Government during the gold rush years around 1900. Sunk by hand to 100 metres, and water brought to the surface by windlass and bucket, it produced good drinking water for many years.
Next stop is the former State Battery which is listed on the State Register of Heritage Places. The battery operated between 1908 and 1982, providing an invaluable service to small mines and prospectors in the area.
Next stop is London Bridge, a weathered basalt ridge thought to be 350 million years old. The bridge is the result of different rates of erosion in hard and soft rock. The underlying rocks of the Sandstone area are thought to be 2 billion years old. A popular picnic place for locals, the bridge is growing thinner and may eventually collapse, so people are asked not to climb the bridge.
The wildflower you see in the foreground of the above collage is one of the mulla-mulla varieties - Silver Mulla Mulla - Ptilotus obovatus
Overnight camping is not permitted, but they do have ingenious BBQs
Next stop is the Old Brewery, constructed by Irishman JV Kearney in 1907. The main building was on top of a breakaway about 1015 metres high. Water from a well was pumped to an elevated tank and from there gravitated to the coolers and down to the brew vats. The beer then flowed via pipes to the cellar built into a tunnel driven into the face of the breakaway. The underground cellar kept remarkedly cool even in the hottest weather by means of a winze - a hole bored through the ceiling of the rock. The brewery continued until 1910 when beer was brought to Sandstone by rail from Mt Magnet.
From here the trail takes you back to Agnew Road and back into town. Our next stop was the old cemetery on Meekatharra Road. The first burial was in March 1908, a 10-month old baby named Horace Mahood. The last burial was Samuel Ure who died when the Oraya Mine collapsed on 25 April 1932. However his body was not recovered until the mine reopened in 1995, and he was laid to rest in the cemetery on 1 October 1995.
There are 141 known grace sites in the cemetery. What we found very interesting was that volunteers from Outback Graves.org have put plaques with names and details onto many of the graves, making it very interesting, especially the cause of death. You can find a lot of very interesting information on their site. You can find out a lot visiting old cemeteries.
Back in town we had lunch at the Sandstone Old Post Office Cafe (I recommend you stop by for a cuppa or a meal) and looked at their interesting historic displays, viewed a historic photo exhibition in the Town Hall, spoke to the ladies at the local craft group, visited the Heritage Museum in the Visitor Centre, got a key so we could go into the Black Range Chapel to see their stained glass windows depicting flora and fauna, visited the war memorial, looked at the old Police Station lockup, checked out the painted water tanks, and viewed from the street the National Hotel - sadly now closed - we had dinner here last time we were in Sandstone.
If you are a golfer you can hire golf clubs from the Visitor Centre. You can also visit the Gold and Wool Interpretive Park and learn about mining and pastoral history. Sandstone has an Astrodome located in the old school grounds, and viewings are conducted between April and October at 7.30pm subject to the weather. Bookings essential from the Visitor Centre.
I hope you have enjoyed this little tour of Yalgoo and Sandstone. It is a relaxed and interesting stop over for a day or two. Next time I will be back with the next part of our journey. Thankyou to the Shire of Sandstone for the information in this blog post.
Sandstone is located 742 km north east of Perth via the Great Northern Highway and then the Geraldton Mt Magnet Road. The Shire of Sandstone covers an area of 32,605 square kilometres with a population of around 116. But it has a huge community spirit.
More information at: sandstone.wa.gov.au and Yalgoo
and Monsignor Hawes churches
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