Day 3 - Mt Elvire Homestead

Another day and another spectacular sunrise. Honestly the sunrises and sunsets are 1000 times better out here, each one different, it’s hard to pick the best one.
Well, we certainly came across more travellers than we expected out here and today was no different. After packing up we headed out to Mt Elivre Homestead to have squizz.
There a heaps of tracks out here heading off every which way its easy to see how a person could get lost. We have our chosen path to Mt Elvire and once again the tracks change from sandy, rocky, corrugated, bulldust and creek beds. Nowaday we have maps, GPS, Hemas and such to get us there while the local aborigines had their paths mapped out; but imagine the early explorers with no prior knowledge of the land making their way across the land using only the stars and a compass.

At one point the track changed yet again and looked like the surface of the moon, full of tiny craters. We hopped out for a look and some photos. They looked like ant holes but there weren’t any ants to be seen anywhere.

Along the way to c we come across some spider webs straddling the track strung up between shrubs on either side. Even though they are empty we deviate around these to avoid breaking them. After a few we come across one with a spider in – a photo opportunity awaits. We get out and spend some time watching and taking photos – it’s a orb spider.

We arrive at Mt Elvire station and have a look around. The main homestead is smaller than i thought it would be. It still has the original wood stove in the kitchen. Camping is allowed – you need to pay DEC at Kalgoorlie before coming out. There is a rain water tank and a pit toilet. As always in the outback the water should be used sparingly. The last recorded rain was in march 2014 when there was 22mm in the gauge. The camp area is treeless/shadeless but would make a good base station to head off an explore the region.

We leave Mt Elvire and make our way back to Southern Cross via the Bullfinch – Evanson road. We stop along the way to change drivers and notice we’ve sprung a leak – the front passenger tyre is down. We pump it up and continue on trying to think we we may punctured it and our calculations suggest back at Mt Elvire. It’s a slowish leak but after an 1 hour and half we stop again to pump it up pushing on to Bullfinch where we changed to tyre under a setting sun.

From Bullfinch to Southern Cross and then home, it was a pretty uneventful drive. It’s interesting though, on the drive home, we were doing 100km and we got passed by every truck and road train out there. Aren’t they limited to 100Kms? you wouldn’t think so. Double demerits for speeding? didn’t see any police or speed traps so I guess they were safe.

Roll on next break, but where to go?

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