Photos of the southeast of Western Australia

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The southeast of Western Australia

Coming from South Australia, across the Nullarbor Plain, the lonely Eyre Highway stretches westwards from Eucla, a village with amenities for the traveller. Further west is Australia’s longest straight road, the “90 Mile Straight”, and the next stop of any size is the town of Norseman, more than 700 kilometres from Eucla. It was founded in 1892 on the Dundas gold field; as legend has it, a horse kicked up a gold nugget here, leading to the discovery of the reef and the town that grew up here was named after that horse, Norseman; the Norseman Gold Project is still in operation.

Warning sign, Eucla
 
90 Mile Straight, Caiguna
 
Flock of emus
 
Old houses, Norseman
 
Talbot Street and Norseman Hotel
 
Camel roundabout, Norseman
 
Roberts Street, Norseman
 
Sculpture of Norseman
 
Blackbutt tree, Beacon Lookout
 
Salt lake, Beacon Lookout
 
Tailing dams, Norseman Gold Project
 
Tailing dams, Norseman Gold Project
 
Lake Cowan
 
Shopping street, Boulder
 
Paddy Hannan statue
 
Hannan Street, Kalgoorlie
 
Hainault Tourist Mine
 
Winding tower, Hainault Mine
 
Equipment, Coolgardie
 
Warden's Court, Coolgardie
 
Esperance Miniature Railway Station
 
Esperance Skate Park
 
Islands west of Esperance
 
Lagoon, west of Esperance
 
View to Esperance
 
Beach, Esperance
 
Le Grand Beach
 
View to Frenchman Peak
 
Frenchman Peak
 
Beach at Lucky Bay
 
Lucky Bay
 
Lucky Bay
 
Whistling Rock
 
Thistle Bay
 
Hellfire Bay
 
Painted grain silos
 

In the dry interior, almost 190 kilometres north of Norseman are the gold mining towns of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Coolgardie, 38 kilometres from there. In 1893, Patrick Hannan found gold, where the local Aborigines called a particular shrub “kulgoolah”, which became “Kalgoorlie” for the town that grew here. A twin town, Boulder, grew up when the “Golden Mile” was discovered, one of the world’s richest gold reefs. Earlier, gold had been found in 1892 at a place called “Golgardi” by the local Aborigines. This brought in many gold seekers: at one stage, the population of Coolgardie was 15,000, Australia’s third largest town. But soon, people moved on, and today, the town is almost an open-air museum.

A little over 200 kilometres south of Norseman, on the Southern Ocean coastline, is the town of Esperance, first settled by Europeans in the 1860s and formally established in 1893. There is a spectacular coastline with fine beaches west of Esperance, while only a 20-minute drive east from the town centre is Cape Le Grand National Park, with granite coastal formations and sheltered white sand beaches.