Western Australia – An Outback Journey From Esperance To Cue

You never really appreciate the vastness of Australia until you drive it.  After birding the forests, mountains and southern coast of Western Australia, the next destination after Esperance was Nallan Station outside Cue.  This involved an epic journey of 1150 kilometers which seemed like forever but is really nothing compared to the whole of Australia.

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There was no way I could drive that in one day so I decided to break the trip a little more than halfway at the mining town and former Gold Rush centre of Leonora.  This meant the first day would be 390 km (4 hours) to Kalgoorlie for a lunch stop, then a further 235 km (3:25) to Leonora.  The second day would be 512 km to Cue with a lunch stop at Mount Magnet.

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There isn’t much to look at while on the road but it was worthwhile to keep an eye out for nomadic parrot species such as Major Mitchell Cockatoos, Budgerigars & Cockatiels. Unfortunately, I wasn’t lucky enough to spot any parrots other than these guys in an aviary at a petrol station.

IMG_5639 IMG_5640 IMG_5649There are a few waterholes along the way, might be worth a look.  You are more likely to see water birds and raptors.IMG_5567 IMG_5579 IMG_5581 IMG_5582 IMG_5588a IMG_5591 IMG_5655Lunch stops are few and far between.  We ate at KFC in Kalgoorlie on the first leg (first cheap place I saw after buying fuel) and on the 2nd leg we got sandwiches at Mt Magnet which is an interesting little Outback town.  Fuel is really expensive, figure on $1.70 – $1.85 a litre and always top up the car before leaving a town.

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