Today we had a very interesting day and one to remember. Mount Magnet was “ disappointing” to say the least but today we travelled another 400+ K’s and had some memorable places to stop. Our plan was to drive to Leonora and the ghost town of “Gwalia” just outside of Leonora. About half way we stopped at Sandstone and it was a gem!
Main Street of Sandstone.
Sandstone is a very small town, 53 permanent residents and they have great delight in projecting their town to visitors. It would have to be one of the cleanest towns we have visited on this trip and the local information centre was keen for us to tour the local sites, which we did.
Sandstone’s version of London Bridge but it looked like a larger version of “Nature’s Window” at Kalbarri NP.This was were a brewery was located in the very early 1900’s just outside Sandstone. Even in the middle of nowhere, the locals hid their “grog”!
We were told to stay at a free camp area just outside Leonora, called Gwalia, a ghost own! So obviously this gave us a reason to visit and we are so glad we followed this advice. Whilst Gwalia is a ghost town, there is still a viable gold mine in operation and we learnt so much about this area.
This is Hoover House, designed by Herbert Hoover in 1898 and who would later become the President of the USA 20+ later. He came out to Australia to manage the gold mine at Gwalia. It was a magnificent place, Susan automatically fell in love with it.This is the open cut gold mine at Gwalia. This photo has been taken at the edge of the garden at Hoover House. Very hard to believe that on ones side you have such a lovely house and the other a bloody big hole in the ground!Part of the ghost town at Gwalia. On the 27th of December 1963. The mine was closed down and it went from over 1500 residents to basically nothing overnight. Most of the dwellings left are very rough corrugated houses the the miners used.The State Hotel was used by the Western Mining Company as administration offices until 2000, now it just another “ghost” relic of Gwalia.
Be Brave on Tour 
So many memories 🙂🙂
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