Between Norseman and Esperance

After a tiring day driving to get to Norseman, we found ourselves in a curious town. Clearly mining is important here. It is a nice sized little town of round about 1,000 people. what made it feel odd was that the streets were empty. It kind of felt like we arrived after the evacuation. Even the birds were quite.

Going in a store - the grocery, for example - was a bit better, it was clear that we are out on the edge of civilization. Our hotel was nice enough, but very old (from the '30s) and was a bit scary from the outside. But it was the only place in town to stay.

We tried the following morning to visit Lake Cowan just north of town to look for birds and we found a flat, dry lake bed with no water anywhere in sight. We wondered where all the rain we'd been seeing and experiencing had gone. Does this lake ever fill?

So we headed south. This day the drive was short to give us time to recuperate.

Between Norseman and Esperance on the southern coast was a drive of a bit over two hours. There were more trees but the roads continue to be pretty darned straight.

No doubt related to the mining, we passed several signs similar to the one below telling us to watch for road trains. Some even put three trailers on the train in the sign.