Great Eastern Highway
The drive from Perth to Kalgoorie along the Great Eastern Highway is long (nearly 600km) and uneventful. The first hour heading east from Perth winds through the city’s suburbs and the Swan River Valley, then up a steep slope into the Darling Range; you may encounter nasty traffic near the city. Road trains rule this highway; beware of wide loads bearing machinery, farm equipment, and even buildings on the truck bed. The last hard stretch between the tiny town of Southern Cross (really no more than a wide spot in the highway) and Coolgardie is 200km of very rough road through the middle of nowhere. This part of the highway is poorly maintained, and even the truckers hate it. Fuel up when you can (in Southern Cross and Coolgardie)it’s a long way to the next petrol station.
Merredin (pop. 3700) is the largest town on the Great Eastern between Coolgardie and Perth. The friendly Shell Merredin Roadhouse makes a good pit stop, with tasty, inexpensive home-cooked meals and takeaway (open daily 7am-10pm).
Coolgardie has exceedingly little to offer the average traveler. It’s a dusty, empty, vaguely unsettling frontier town that serves mainly as a residential satellite for the families of miners working in Kalgoorlie. The main street (the 94 Hwy, known as Bay-ley St in town) houses a tourist office, post office, and police station, on your right when driving toward Perth. If you must spend the night in Coolgardie, the Denver City Hotel on Bayley St has simple, unheated rooms for. The noise from the rather unfriendly pub downstairs may keep you up. At the west end of town, die Caltex Roadhouse rents clean rooms for. There are rio ATMs in town, but most madhouses have EFTPOS.
Related Travel Information
The Haven Caravan Park, Coolgardie
The Haven Caravan Park is located at the western end of Coolgardie on the Great Eastern Highway. Powered sites, onsite vans and camping facilities are available. Pets are permitted on a leash.
Woolgoolga
Woolgoolga is an interesting town with a good beach. Just a short drive north of Coffs Harbour, Woolgoolga (Woopi to the locals) offers a great holiday stopover. Located mostly on the eastern side of the Pacific Highway, between the highway and the sea, this paradise is not just a beach front holiday spot but an arts and craft centre with many local artists.
This holiday place is ideal for the family with top class accommodation without the hustle of most tourist centres. The population includes around 10 per cent Sikh, so temples and Indian women in traditional dress make
Coolgardie Camel Farm, Coolgardie
Coolgardie's development has been intimately linked with camels and the town's wide streets are reputed to have been designed to accommodate turning camel trains. Coolgardie's Camel Farm is located 4 kilometres west of town along the Great Eastern Highway. At the Camel Farm visitors can try their hand at riding camels and overnight camel treks are available by arrangement.
Great Ocean Road
The entire serene and spectacular southwestern coast of Victoria, from Torquay east to Portland, is encompassed by the Great Ocean Road (GOR) region, though the road itself is just the 200km stretch that links Torquay to Warrnambool before being absorbed by the Princes Highway. The Victoria government, in tribute to Australians who died in World War I, commissioned the coastal highway with the intention of creating one of the world's greatest drives. By all accounts, they succeeded, carving a route that winds between misty temperate rainforests and the unearthly pillars, stone arches, and gorges sculpted by the Southern
The Kimberley
Pressed between the Indian Ocean and the Great Sandy Desert, the Kimberley's 320,000 square kilometers of rough, raw tropical bush are broken only by unpredict¬able rivers, magnificent boulder-stacked cliffs, and tiny pockets of settlement. Only rugged souls venture past the beach mecca of Broome, but those who do are rewarded by a wilderness experience they won't soon forget. Occupying the entire northern end of Western Australia, the Kimberley is accessible from the rest of the state by flights to Broome or via a long, lonely desert highway from Port Hedland, and from the Northern Territory via Routes 1 and
