Okay, here is one more big rock! Kokerbin Rock, in the wheatbelt of WA, is thought to be the second largest monolith in the world after Uluru.
But Walga Rock, which I visited a while back, was also supposed to be the world’s second largest rock… So maybe Kokerbin Rock is really the third largest monolith?
Anyway, now I can say I have been to three of the world’s biggest rocks. So there!
(Or maybe I have seen the four biggest rocks, if you include Mt Augustus, which is reputedly the world’s largest rock, but officially isn’t actually a monolith, so it probably shouldn’t be included here…).
Kokerbin Rock is big and I could see it from about 20km away, rising out of the surrounding pastoral lands which are pretty flat. It is a big chunk of granite that supposedly formed underground about 260 million years ago and has been exposed for about 60 million years.
It even has a rock wave.
It is surrounded by a tiny reserve of remaining natural bushlands. They reckon only about 10% of bushlands remain in the wheatbelt and when you drive through the country, it is staggering how massive these fields of grain are – they literally stretch in every direction, to the horizon and beyond.
In Merredin, the town celebrates its railway past at the old station, which is now a museum. The rail came through here in 1896, with the tracks reaching the goldfields further east the following year. Merredin was then an important junction town, but those days are now gone.
The water tower was built around 1896 to supply the steam trains and still carries advertising for Kalgoorlie Bitter, the locally brewed beer.
The signal box, built in 1913 gives a splendid view over the railway yards and the town.
It has 93 levers that operated the signals in the heyday of the railway here. It must have been a very important job. There is a map of the railway yard above the levers, but it didn’t mean anything to me!
They also have an original steam engine that pulled the trains through here. The engine entered service in 1897 and pulled the ‘Kalgoorlie Express’ for many years.
It looks a bit small, but I guess this is pretty flat country, so they probably didn’t need massive engines to haul the trains.
Sticking to the country backroads, I have encountered many wildflowers as I have pottered along. Stopping every few metres to take another photo (or so it seems), I thought I had better share some with you. I have no idea what most of them are, I still haven’t bought a guidebook for wildflowers!
Scroll down and enjoy!
I am now back on the coast at Geraldton, camped right next to the Indian Ocean, which is rather nice. And plenty of opportunity to enjoy a glass of wine on the beachfront, waiting to capture the next perfect sunset photograph.
