Almost deserted, the Western Australian goldfields town of Gwalia is the last stop on the road to nowhere.
Many things are surprising about Gwalia. One is that its 20-odd residents don’t all know each other. Nodding terms are apparently sufficient for the last survivors of the red dirt ghost town parked quietly alongside the nearby mining centre of Leonora.
Another is the stuffed dummies perched whimsically in the outhouses of long-abandoned corrugated iron humpies. Inside these pokey one-time miner’s shacks, jackets hang from coat hooks and kerosene-tin drawers sit intact on the floor. Even the dusty beds are made. This could be a historic theme park, but the crowds are nowhere. Nor are the cleaners.
Then there’s the grand old house on the hill. The one built for a future US president. Hoover House is the main beacon at this speck on the Western Australian goldfields map. It was commissioned by Herbert Hoover while he was mine manager for Sons of Gwalia in the late 1800s – about 30 years before he became the 31st president of the United States. Hoover, an ambitious young mining upstart, lured to Western Australia by gold, celebrated his 24th birthday in the house. He left before it was finished, but returned regularly, trailing various dignitaries who also slept in its hallowed rooms.
A renovation of the homestead saw it emerge in 2004 as both museum and B&B accommodation. Visitors can now linger, not just to sleep in Hoover’s favoured “gold” or “blue” rooms, stacked like the rest of the house with original furniture and antique set pieces, but to discover the charms of the faded town at its doorstep.
The town is all but extinct in terms of commerce. For a shop or a meal you need to drive the four kilometres or so to Leonora, where the White House in Tower Street is a solid eating option. But Gwalia’s solitude is its appeal.
Abandoned virtually overnight in 1963 when the Sons of Gwalia mine closed down, it remains a reasonably intact monument to the WA gold rush. It is both thrilling and chilling to creak open a door and fossick through heritage possessions. It’s as if the owner just ducked to the shop and vanished. The partial restoration of the humpies is thanks to the town’s recent residents. The absence of fanfare or entry fee – or vandalism, for that matter – makes it a refreshingly authentic brush with history.
Also a sight: the giant hole in the ground on Hoover House’s southern boundary. The 1100m-wide open-cut mine still harbours a rich reef of gold and is operating again. The dramatic pit offers a sense of currency as you peruse the excellent collection of memorabilia at the Hoover House museum. An annual Gold Bar dinner is proposed for the old homestead. A new interpretive centre is also planned; it will inhabit the site of what was Mazza’s store, currently being restored.
In its heyday, Gwalia had buildings and services for more than 1000 residents. These days, isolation keeps it ghostly. And real. Gwalia is nearly 1000km from Perth and 237km from Kalgoorlie. Like the nearby salt bed of Lake Ballard, which is home to Antony Gormley’s haunting “human” sculptures, the spectacular, sometimes almost overwhelming, remoteness is part of the thrill of visiting this region.
Gwalia is on the Golden Quest Discovery Trail circuit from Coolgardie to Kalgoorlie.
Website
Stay
Hoover House
Gwalia.
White House Hotel
120 Tower Street, Leonora.
Source: Qantas The Australian Way December 2008