Day 17 - Australia's Third Largest Monolith

Coolgardie is the first town west of Kalgoorlie. I find those names confusing against each other. The former is basically a ghost town and was the first gold field town in the area. Here are some towns with interesting names that I just travelled through (most are tiny): Bullabuling, Boorabbin, Koorarawalyee, Bodallin, Burracoppin, Quairading, and Mundaring.

The name of the blog is about a large granite outcropping named Kokerbin Rock, which is a monolith (like Uluru). My road map showed it as “Australia’s Third Largest Monolith”, so I said yes. It was sort of cool, I suppose. But it wasn’t very big for such an impressive advertisement. There are actually heaps of monoliths dotting the landscape, and these were used by aborigines and early settlers as a source of water. One called Boondi Rock had a dike and canal system built to funnel all its runoff rainwater into a holding pond. There are natural mosses on these monoliths that hold water and seep for weeks after rains (in case you didn’t bring your fancy canal). This is an extremely hot and dry landscape, so I can imagine how important these water sources were. Each time I was on a monolith, by the way, these little lizards scampered about in front of me. They were fast!

One thing I like about travelling is that I get to do my running in new places. Last night I went for a run through the farm town of Merredin. It was late dusk and my random route took me through a modest neighborhood. I came upon five adults sitting on a porch, and they were listening to Jingle Bells. I’m quite serious. I thought this was very funny given the lyrics of “dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh…” against the temperature and location. I held my laughter until I had passed sufficiently far to be politely unheard, and then out came my big chuckle about it. I didn’t wait long enough though, for I heard them laughing just as heartily about that time. I think they were laughing at me…

It got to 42 degrees C today (that’s 104 degrees F). After lunch, in the town of York, I went for a walk in the heat. I felt like my bones were sucking it up, and all of my skin was wet with sweat. I was really getting into it – for about 15 minutes! Then I jumped back in the car and cranked the A/C. They didn’t use to have that luxury back in the day, and I felt spoiled for it.

The farmland reminds me of Central Washington State, USA - except for all the gum trees.

They transport water around to different regions by simply laying pipe on the ground on blocks.

The crows are starting to sound more like cooing babies now. I still like it, and they’re still doing it everywhere.

I was listening to the radio last night, and the announcer said, ‘now I’m going to do this in my American accent’. She then recited a line out of a movie. It was odd.

A “Sheila” is a good looking older woman. (Meow!)

“Wee” is “pee”.

Remember the cricket (The Ashes) being played between England and Australia that I talked about last week (see Day 9)? Well, they’re still at it. Today I heard on the radio ‘England is 226 runs at lunch in the 4th test’. But I was able to find someone in Australia today who doesn’t care (besides me).

When you order food to go, it’s called “take away” (e.g. ‘I’ll have a coffee for take away’).

I found a nice road side fruit and vegetable market. I loaded up and hope I didn’t eat it fast enough for it to haunt me. I’ll find out tomorrow.

I made it back to Perth, which is a long way from inland Kalgoorlie. I’m going to spend the rest of my Western Australia time along the coast to the north.

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Day 17 – Australia's Third Largest Monolith

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