A cool morning saw us on the road to York. This was mere hop, skip and a jump and we arrived just in time for an alfresco coffee and a look around. York for NSWelchies, it’s Bellingen writ large and for Vico’s it’s Ballarat writ smallish. York is a beautiful town with a fantastic vibe and so lucky in retrospect. The story goes that when the railway line to Kalgoolie was being built, it was planned to run through York. However the local member for Northam, (just up the road, figuratively speaking) lobbied hard for the railway line to go through HIS town. Eventually the dispute was settled by a late night card game, that the member for Northam duly won.
Now over 100 years later it has turned out that it was a good game to lose. Northam has become just another rail head country town while York became a backwater, frozen in time and unchanged for over a century. ” Discovered” by the WA Historical Society twenty years ago and quickly classified as an historic town, York has all the opulence of the gold rush years but the laid back coolness of the latte crowd. Apparently York has a bit of Fatal Attraction about it, with a few RV’ers each year just going no further and settling down.
And of all places to find a car museum!! York Motor Museum, bang in the main street and one of the best I’ve seen.
So, onto Northam and our quest for a swimming hole…somewhere…anywhere. The temperature was well and truly on the up when we hit the Visitor Centre and the news was bleak. Nothing but crystalline salt pans to the north, lakes in name only.
Undeterred, I made a call to the next Shire east. I could hear the doubt in her voice, but someone in the background piped up with “Baandee Lake could still have water in it .” The voice said “You could try there. It is deeper than most.” As there was no Plan B, we girded our loins and started the 125klm drive towards Kalgoolie, hoping against hope that we would find our oasis near the burgeoning metropolis of South Doodlakine.
The temperature was due to hit 40 later that day, so we were relieved to turn into Ski Lake Road (a promising start). Imagine our crushing disappointment when, halfway down the hill we caught sight of yet another salt pan, the bleached bones of our expectations laid bare. I swear there were a couple of vultures circling lazily overhead. All hope seemed lost.
Luckily, I couldn’t find a place to turn around, so we puttered on. And then, a ribbon of blue through the trees. Could it be true? YEESSSSSS !!!
A huge lake, a circle of blue lay in front of us. How was it possible? Salt pan and blue water in the same lake. Well, somebody had a good idea and built a small dam wall, that allowed water to flow down into the bottom half of the lake but stopped it flowing back to be evaporated during the dry. Well, were we chuffed! Even being buffeted by strong winds and an electrical storm in the first 48 hours didn’t dampen our enthusiasm. A swim anytime and a cold shower to cap it off.
Baandee Lake is a salt water lake…..how salty? Well, if you don’t shower off, you ending up feeling more crusty than usual. Drowning would be impossible, pickled more likely. Not complaining though, refreshing and available 24/7. Now we knew that going north was not a good move. Different in the spring when the wildflowers go..well, wild, but at the height of summer heading south seemed a much better idea.