Midwest, Goldfields, Wildflower Trundle - Part 5 - Leonora, and Gwalia, Western Australia

 Hi all, I hope you and yours are doing well. 

I hope you have been enjoying my little recap of our Midwest, goldfields and wildflowers trundle. Today I bring you Part 5 - Sandstone to Leonora and Gwalia, in the north-eastern Western Australian goldfields region. If you missed my last post you can see it here - Midwest, goldfields, wildflower trundle - Part 4

From Sandstone we travelled east via the Agnew-Sandstone Rd and then south on the Goldfields Highway. Distance from Sandstone to Leonora is around 278 kilometres. 

We made a quick stop at the Peter Denny lookout where there is a free camp with views over the breakaways. The Rest Area and lookout commemorate Peter John Denny, who was President of the Sandstone Shire Council from 1995 to 1997. Peter Denny lobbied hard for the road to be sealed from Mount Magnet to Leinster.

The lookout carpark is right next to the highway but there are plenty of places to set up camp. There are picnic tables and bins but no toilet. There are also plenty of flies! Bring a fly-net! 

Here are a few of the wildflowers we saw along the way - Below you can see one of the yellow grevillea's or it could be a hakea - sometimes difficult to tell the difference. The purple one next to and immediately below is a native hibiscus - very beautiful. And there were lots of the purple firebush flowering along the road. 

At Leinster we turned south onto the Goldfields Highway. Leinster is basically a mining town built to house mine workers in the area. We found a truck bay to pull over so we could stop for morning tea, arriving at Leonora around 1pm and booked into the caravan park for the next 2 nights. 

We hadn't stopped in Leonora before but we found the caravan park to be neat and quiet and we did a bit of washing, and went into town to buy some groceries - we were surprised at higher prices than we are used to, but in reality this is an isolated town. We also visited the Visitor Centre to pick up some tourist information. 

Leonora is the service centre for the mining, exploration and pastoral industry.

Indigenous people lived here for thousands of years before explorer John Forrest and party, in search of the lost Leichardt Expedition in 1869, made camp near a hill and named it Mount Leonora. Twenty five years on, prospectors moved through the area and by 1896 mining claims were pegged and gold discovered, leading to the establishment of the twin towns of Leonora and Gwalia, along with the smaller town of Malcolm. A railway link from Kalgoorlie opened in June 1902 and still operates today.

Leonora became the largest centre on the North Eastern Goldfields and by 1908 boasted 7 hotels, general stores, chemists, tailors and bakeries. Mining has continued to the present day with gold, and now nickel, being produced in large quantities. From Leonora-Visitors

We took a drive out to Malcolm Dam which evidently is popular for camping. There are picnic shelters with fire rings and rubbish bins and there were a few people camped out there. It was very windy when we visited, and the area is quite wide open and exposed, however there are plenty of areas to camp. We had our morning tea which the flies tried to carry away. 

We saw what my husband thought were Banded Plovers and stilts - but we couldn't get close enough to photograph. 

12kms from Leonora, Malcolm dam was built in 1902 to supply water for the railway. 

After lunch we went to old living ghost town of Gwalia, 3kms from Leonora. 

Gold was discovered near Mount Leonora by prospectors J Carlson, F White and A Glendinning in 1896. The Sons of Gwalia mine was at one time the second largest gold mine in Western Australia. It was managed during 1898 by Herbert Hoover, who became the thirty-first president of the USA in 1929.

Listed on the WA State Register of Heritage Places, and named after a Welsh investment syndicate, the Gwalia townsite is a unique heritage site which includes 27 partially renovated miners’ cottages. The one-stop Mazza’s general store which sold everything from soap to ammunition and also handled the mail for Gwalia, Major’s Boarding House, Patroni’s Guest House, the Shift Boss’s house, mechanics shop with its collection of number plates, and the lock-up all give you a snap-shot into the life of the miners and their families. 

 

The cottages were simply built from corrugated iron with white washed hessian and pressed tin interior walls, with dirt or wooden floors. Imagine the heat during the summer! Around 1000 people lived here in the 1890s including Italian, Austrian and Yugoslav immigrants. Evidently galah and polenta was a local speciality. 

The mine ran at a loss for some years before closing prematurely on New Year’s Eve 1963 when the headframe was damaged in an accident. The town’s residents virtually left overnight, seeking work in mines to the south, reducing the population from 1,200 to 40 within a few weeks.

27 of the cottages in Gwalia have been partially restored by volunteers through the Adopt-a-Cottage Project 1995-96, with further conservation work commencing in 2013.  

You can also explore the history of Gwalia in the fascinating museum precinct. 

The café in Hoover House is open from 10am to 3pm. Once the grand home of Sons of Gwalia Gold Mine managers, Hoover House is now a luxury Bed and Breakfast and function venue. The house was designed in 1898 by Herbert Hoover, however he had left Gwalia before it was completed. There are three bedrooms with ensuites. 

The mine was reopened in 1983 and visitors can view the pit from the lookout. Over 1,800 metres below the surface, it is the deepest trucking mine in the world. It takes approximately 80 minutes for mine trucks to travel to the surface. Today 550-650 people are employed at the mine, a combination of Leonora residents and fly-in-fly out workers.

Entry to Gwalia is free, but donations are appreciated.

I recommend at least 2-3 hours to explore Gwalia. Longer if you want to read all the fascinating information. 

There is camping at Gwalia adjacent to the mine precinct, but only for fully self-sufficient and self-contained RVs and caravans which have a grey water tank. 

For more information:

Gwalia Ghost Town and Museum

Gwalia - Relics of the past - a previous blog post of mine which includes the story of the Gwalia Hotel beer strike. 

Shire of Leonora

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