Doolgunna Station Trip.

Doolgunna Station is *a long way*  from here, last time Hubby did this trip it took him 11 hours, from Perth.  Mind you, he was in a truck so doing it in a car it probably wouldn't take as long but, for us, it is a long way from home.

The reason for the trip was to pick up bags of soil samples and take them back to Perth for testing.  There are people on this station, and lots of other stations in the North of our state, looking for gold, copper and probably other minerals but on this station they are drilling for gold.

The blokes doing the soil-sample pickup run usually drive up one day and load up and leave the next.  But I wanted to go and see a bit of the country up that way again so talked Hubby into letting me go along with him and doing the 2 day trip over 5.  The lovely man agreed even though it added a lot to his work and meant a couple of days being away with no pay.  But he had me for company and that would have made up for it.  That's what I kept telling him anyway.  And I might be allowed to go again...Anyway...

Thursday.  I was supposed to work and we were going to leave after that but I had a bonus day off so that gave us the chance to leave early and have more time to stop and look on the way.  In theory anyway.  The truck was supposed to be loaded so we could leave straight away, with no stops in Perth...But...it wasn't fully loaded so we lost time there.  We had to do a drop-off and a pickup in Perth so that added more time so any time we made up by leaving early was already lost.  HoHum...It meant that we wouldn't have time to stop anywhere as we wanted to be in Dalwallinu before dark.  We had booked a room here so we weren't driving through the dark and because I was with him it wasn't possible to pull over and sleep whenever.  
We stayed in a motel unit behind the pub and though it was clean(ish) with plenty of hot water it was old and basic.  I had been quoted $85 and we were told the same when we picked up the key but when Hubby went over to get something to eat and pay for the room he was charged $70.  A much better price.

Our unit is the one with the open door.

 One of the things that we had to load onto the truck in Perth to take up with us was 2 big Engel freezers.  Full of meat.  So Hubby had to half empty them to lift them onto the truck in Perth then refill them.  Half empty them to lift off the truck here so we could put them in the unit and get them running again and then do the same the next morning before we left.  And they were heavy even with half the stuff taken out, I know cause I helped carry them, so not sure what the thinking was in expecting him to do that.  We had an early night so I was up early Friday, had a coffee but still had to wait an hour for it to get light enough to see before I went walking the streets and seeing what the town was like.

 I liked the  stone wall in front of this building.

My main impression of Dallwallinu was that the main street was clean and tidy and nice looking.  All the houses and shops were tidy, the gardens were all neat and tidy.   Then I walked back to the hotel and walked behind it to get to the units...and the place was a dump.  Mess everywhere, untidy buildings, old junk laying around.  It was so noticeable after walking through the main street and such a pity that it wasn't tidy as well.
We left Dalwallinu around 8am, knowing there was a long drive ahead.
The area around here is good for wheat growing and as we were leaving there was this sign that I thought was clever.

And after a bit... Six hours to go...

To be continued...