New ground but is it marble?

 

Monday 28 June 2021 – New ground but is it marble?

A quick pack up this morning and we were back on the road.  Headed towards Port Hedland for about 30km but then turned south taking the road to Marble Bar.  This was a road we had never been on before so we looked around at the scenery with interest.  In my mind Marble Bar is the epitome of BFN – a town known only for having recorded the highest ever temperature in Australia stuck in the middle of a dry hot plain.  So it was a pleasant surprise to drive along with green hills around us, albeit the predominant vegetation being Spinifex.

We decided to stop at Doolena Gorge for morning tea and nearly missed the turn off as it was a very little sign.  A bumpy road in with lots of overhanging trees wasn’t that suitable for the XT15 so eventually we parked up in a little turn around area and walked in the rest of the way which was only a couple of hundred metres.  H&M drove in all the way so had the thermos unpacked and hot water sorted for our cuppas by the time we got there.  We wandered down across the huge river bed for views of the gorge with drinks in hand and admired the rocky red faces of the gorge.

Back to the cars and onwards to Marble Bar.  Just outside town we saw the racecourse and L was a little disappointed that we were six days early for the next race meeting.  We learned later, however, that we would probably not have got in anyway as attendance is capped at 3000 people in order for the crowd to be managed and tickets had already been sold.

Jenny was very impressed by the entry statements leading into Marble Bar – four large, iron sculptures and a large “Welcome to Marble Bar” sign – far more impressive than the piddly entry statements into both the Town of Cambridge or Cottesloe – both who could afford to do much better than they do.

Marble Bar town site was a very pleasant surprise – a tidy little town with neat gardens and houses and a lovely old government building which was formerly the post office and now houses the information centre and police station.

We pulled into the nice, shady caravan park and only had a brief moment of panic when the guy couldn’t find our reservation only to find the lady had reserved it under “Jenny” instead of “Bender”!!  We set up and Jenny quickly did a load of washing while that happened so that we could head off and support the local economy by buying lunch rather than making it.

For some unknown reason the pub only opens between 12pm and 1pm for lunch (even though the caravan park was packed with tourists and so anyone with any business sense would realise they could open between 12 and 2pm and probably make twice as much money if not more.  As it was, because it was 1.05pm by the time we were ready to eat we had to make do with fast food from the Traveller’s Rest roadhouse coming into town.  This wasn’t a huge tragedy though as they made very hot chips and the nice lady let us sit inside at one of the three motel breakfast tables to eat our pies, sandwiches and chips.

Prior to lunch we had driven past the Iron Clad hotel (just to make sure it really did shut at 1pm) and had driven on to the Information Centre and had a look at the little museum.  As an old, turn of the century type building it had lovely thick walls and I imagine it would have been quite a nice place to work in the middle of summer and pre air-conditioners.  The Information centre has a chart showing the worst heat wave in Marble Bar in living memory which was in 1926/7 and basically involved every day between October and March being above 40 degrees Celsius.  Apparently this year was hotter but not for as long! 

                                    

                                    

After lunch we followed the instructions of the Information Centre lady and headed slightly out of town to the bar of rock that runs across the Coongan river which was, when first discovered by white man, thought to be marble but later found to be Jasper.  This whole area is an ‘A’ class reserve and there are lots of stern signs telling you not to remove or chip off any bits of rock.  We climbed all over the bar though and Miranda had brought along a water bottle which we filled from the creek and then splashed over the rocks to bring out all the pretty stripes and colours.

                                

                                

Back in the car and we headed on to the “Jasper collection area” which is a far less impressive bit of rubbly rock another 5km further along the road.  We picked up a couple of likely looking little rocks but then Jenny had the idea of picking one up and flinging it against another whereby a piece shattered off and a pretty striped rock inside could be seen – not Jasper and probably quartz but pretty all the same.

We had seen signs on the road indicating the Comet Gold Mine museum was only a few more kilometres down the sealed road (thanks Gina!) so we headed down to take a look.  Sure enough we came across the derelict gold mine on one side of the road at the base of a big hill and a predominantly derelict settlement on the other, amongst which stood the museum building and a old fashioned white building which we found out later is the caretaker’s abode.

We paid our $3 each for museum entry and then were virtually imprisoned by Gerard (the caretaker) for the next hour or so as he first explained in detail all the things of interest inside the building and then made us sit on the verandah overlooking the gold mine while we told us what every building was and its purpose, the history of the gold mine and pretty much where every seam was found and when.  It was actually all pretty interesting but it did drag probably a bit too long and it got a little hard to stifle yawns towards the end.  The brief synopsis is that one bloke found some alluvial gold in the creek at the base of the hill, dug a bit of a hole and managed to hit a seam.  He went on to sell the claim to Claude de Bernales (who built my place of work with the profits) who brought in a village worth of miners, built them houses, a pool and a tennis court and then managed, with a fair amount or arse to hit seam after seam running in all different directions within the hill side.  By the time the mine closed they had managed to extricate about half a billion dollars worth of gold out of it.  They reckon there’s still gold in there to be had but the hill is so riddled with holes and tunnels that no structural engineer can figure out how to get to it without getting a few thousand tonnes worth of earth on his or her head.

                                    

We finally escaped the museum some time after 4pm and headed back to the vans where J brought the washing in.  I had had a nice chat to a lady whilst hanging it out who had just come back from a few weeks prospecting out past Nullagine.   They do it as a hobby and had found a few “ouncers” worth about $80 to $100 each so had just about covered the costs of their prospecting licences, equipment and protective clothing required while trudging through harsh Spinifex country.

A bit of down time and internet and then Miranda started plying us with food – pate and crackers, followed by steak, corn, roast potatoes, carrots and broccoli in a white sauce followed by a delicious golden syrup pudding.  We did our best but had to give up with a couple of spoonfuls to go.  Nice hot showers before bed.   We have enjoyed our time in Marble Bar and are very glad we came here.