Wed, 27th Nov, 2024 Bush camp at Old Cricket Grounds, Broomehill to RV Rest Stop, Katanning, WA (exploring Katanning)

10 degrees min, cloudy and the wind has settled.

Packed up and headed north to Katanning to get some fuel and it was cheapest. Also there are new murals and it was marked on the Silo Trail so we will check that out too.

Straight into some roadworks where we listened to the politest stop go people ever - they both sounded like they enjoyed their work. I wanted to call them up and say thank you for their delightful chatter when exchanging about vehicles coming etc. Instead we just waved as we passed through.

Passed the turn off onto a gravel road to start the Holland Track.

Only a short drive north and we entered Katanning. We have been here before.

Annalise sent through two photos of Beau laughing, so cute.

We had a cuppa then headed off to find the murals that were marked on Wikicamps. We passed a couple that I remember seeing on our previous visit.

They have some lovely buildings.

Checked out the Rotary Well info.

Passed some murals that we saw previously. Found some info about the murals then located one we hadn't seen before.

Stopped at the Info Centre in the old railway station. Nice mural here.

The chap said they don’t have a silo here, they longer store grain here. He said there were some new murals done as part of the silo trail and the others were done by locals etc. He then told us about Mr Piesse who was the founder of Katanning and the beautiful home he had built which has now been restored by the Baptist Community and used for conferences and accommodation. He also said that all the rainwater that comes off the largest sales yards in the state (out of town) was flowing in the waterways which are salty, affecting the ecosystem. They channelled half the water to a tank at the golf course so they have the greenest green in the grain country area. The rest goes into a man-made dam at Piesse Park where Piesse had built another dam for his flour mill etc. The salty water in the little lake bypasses the man-made lake via pipes. The flour mill was empty for a while and the Shire decided to sell it. It sold for $1 to the Dome (Cafe) but with the proviso they spend at least $4 million on restoration. In the end they spent $14 million and it has two top floors for boutique accommodation which from the first day has been 100% booked out at not cheap prices too. The restaurant area still has the old boiler, pipework etc so he said to definitely go in and look. We remember seeing the scaffolding etc around it when we visited in 2017. We thanked him for all the information and headed off to explore some more as we didn’t see the house etc on the last visit.

Nearby is Mr Piesse’s statue.

On a cairn near that was a plaque about the first school.

We went into the Dome Cafe and wandered about. I looked up the history of the Dome. It was founder by three people - Phil May, Patria Jafferies and Phil Sexton. Phil May (triple jump Olympian in the 1970s) bought a French antique roaster in Melbourne and shipped to Perth to start roasting after retiring from his sporting career. He created Western Roast Coffee and started supplying the Matilda Bay Brewing Company, owned by Ms Jafferies and Mr Sexton. They joined together to create Dome Cafe and now there are more than 130 cafes operating in six countries. They were committed to local heritage and restored many forgotten buildings.

Back outside - down the road a bit was the power station Piesse built for the mill.

Back to the camper I looked up the murals again and found that the 2017 Public Silo Trail stopped here but not having a silo to paint they lit up a series of Western Power transformer boxes and walls in town.

We went around to the RV Rest Stop. Good rest area with 7 flat bitumen parks for vans etc, water and dump point. We had previously stayed in a park according to my map book.

Across the road I found a nice long mural.

Drove over the railway line and along to ‘Kobeelya’. Beautiful house and amazing to think at such a young age he had accomplished so much. The house then became a school in 1922.

Some other history info from the Kobeelya booklet the chap gave us.

Also on Wikicamps we saw there was the shortest street in Australia with only one house so we drove around to check it out. There was two but only one with Pope Street address as the corner one is the other street. There was talk of lengthening the street but they decided not to as it brings lots of tourists to the town. That worked as here we are.

Back to Piesse Park for lunch. Lots of fun things on the footpath for kids to do.

The coffee pod tree was making lots of sounds.

Looking over the man-made lake with the salt water creek diverted beside it from the smaller lake on the other side that the creek flows into.

Headed around the lake. Lots of purple flowers - probably weeds but they look pretty.

Spotted the swans the chap mentioned and the cygnets that are just about to get their dark feathers.

Back to the camper to make lunch. Steve went wandering and found a free book library and some more information. We took some books to exchange as he found a few suitable ones in there - one was about Fleetwood Mac, his favourite band.

Back through the ‘other’ town section this side of the railway line - very narrow and spotted a couple of murals.

Around to Woolies for a few groceries then back to the RV Rest Stop for the night. We pulled in behind another campervan rather than taking up another bay.

Steve had picked up a booklet on the area and there was a good article about Katanning.

I worked on my blog - lots of photos to sort! Had a cuppa - Steve reading his books.

The cold wind has picked up so we closed up the camper though the sun is shining in on the dining side which is very nice.

Quiet evening, no other vans etc came in.