Day 14.07

The view from the lookout above Norseman shows the wide expanse of this land. Like paint on an artist’s palette sandstone-beige mixes with the orange-red earth. The leaves of the eucalypts glisten more like copper than green at the tops of bronzed branches. The ranges in the distance spread out in a deep royal blue, from the west to the north, and then flow into a mysterious purple towards the east.

There is also a tower, under which a car is parked, and whose driver is loudly chatting on the phone. We try our mobiles for coverage. “Yeah! We have signal!” I exclaim and start dialing Kal’s number.

Norseman has been a gold mining town since 1894. I guess there is ‘gold in them there hills’. Unfortunately, the only things open in town were a petrol station and the Visitors’ Center. No fresh fruit or veggies for us yet. I guess we are not staying in Norseman but driving on to Kalgoorlie, 195 km away, instead.

(We take on the first fuel since Eucla. We traveled 710km on 57.85 l. Amazing what a good fuel economy one can achieve when travelling at an average of 70 km/h. And the price? Only 148.5c/l. Which, after some price as high as 187.5c/l, is very cheap.)

We turn north towards Kalgoorlie, and drive along the causeway of Lake Cowan. But there’s no lake. Only red flat dirt as far as we can see. I imagine that it would be rather shallow when it does have water in it, when the rain comes. The causeway is not very high.

‘Dry Lake’