4th Newsetter

Newsletter 4
Well, what an experience this holiday has been. A working holiday really; however, my last weekend with Heather was celebrated at Gwalia (pronounced Gorlia) – Google it! The history is amazing.
We went to Lake Ballard first – a salt lake with an amazing installation of metal statues of the local people, you can imagine I went wild with my camera Walking on the damp salt lake was good for the thighs – step one, slip one, it felt like an intricate knitting pattern. Luckily, it was not too hot, so I coped with the time there very well.
Heather booked us into Hoover House in Gwalia for the Friday and Saturday nights. This old home is now a B&B, built by Herbert Hoover as a young man, when he was manager of the gold mine at Gwalia. Later, of course, he became President of the USA. The house has 3 bedrooms which are available for guests. The beds were very comfortable and we enjoyed our stay immensely. This Victorian brick home, surrounded by cool verandahs, is actually on the lip of the open pit gold mine – Sons of Gwalia and about 40 goats roam the upper terraces. Incredible … as are the colours through the day as the sun moves over and lowers to the horizon. I will bore you by insisting you watch the slide shows of my photos.
The whole property is a museum and we were locked in by the cyclone wire gate from 4pm each afternoon - luckily they trusted us with a key to the gate so we could escape to the Leonora pub for dinner if we wished. Down the hill from Hoover House is the ‘ghost’ town of Gwalia. The miners’ houses were built mainly of corrugated iron (Al tells me they are like the Kalgoorlie houses … (which makes sense, because even the Wiluna houses were moved to Kalgoorlie when the mine there closed). Before I came to WA, I had read Roland Roccicchioli’s autobiography (thanks to Irene). I was so taken with the book, I bought one for myself and one for Heather; it gave wonderful descriptions of Gwalia where RR spent his childhood. In Gwalia we walked through his house and several others – a photographer’s paradise.
Another highlight of our weekend was the time we spent at Lake Ballard, walking on the slippery, damp, salt surface to look closely at the sculptures that are sited all over the lake. An amazing spectacle, what textures!. A thousand km in Heather’s Drawstring Studio, who would have thought it! The van travelled very well and brought us safely home to Heather’s shire house.
Heather is facing a difficult environment in the shire, her fabulous work in the galley is clouded by the attitude of others who work in the building. It is a shame to think I can’t stay and offer moral support. I am so impressed with the relationships she has developed with the artists – they really seem to respect her and come to talk to her in her office, even though they expect her to run around after them in the studio.
Although my time here is coming to an end, I have a lovely time ahead before I go home to Mitcham. I will stay with Marcie, Al, Bailey and Baxter in their lovely home in Kensington before driving down to Bunbury with Judy on Friday. In the following week I also hope to see Kaye and Graham Swiney in Busselton, they visited Heather in Wiluna last year while I was there.
What an amazing time I am having. Love to you all, Susie