Renewable power - Ellendale pool and Walkaway village

13th July 2014

Lovely sunny day again.  We drove to a local beauty spot called Ellendale Pool.  This is in fact a deep waterhole where the Greenough river runs under some limestone cliffs. There are a series of water holes in the dried up river this one being the largest at about 1km long.  Very pretty.

Ellendale pool on the Greenough river

On the way we passed a wind farm.  The mid west coast is one of the windiest placed in the country [as we have already experienced] so this is an ideal spot.

Wind farm near Walkaway

This particular group of over 50 windmills in conjunction with a PV solar plant further to the east generate almost 100 mega watts which is a substantial contribution to the grid from ecologically sound sources.

Check out the size of the blade!

We returned to Greenough to see a few buildings we missed yesterday. The now ruined temperance lodge was the scene of many a wild party and all without alcohol!

Temperance lodge circa 1870

After this, we visited Walkaway to look in the fusty little museum housed in the old railway station there.  As usual with these country museums, the buildings contain an eclectic mixture of donations all of which are in need of proper display and cataloguing.  I particularly enjoyed a tattered 1972 magazine entitled 'Home Ideas' or some such. It was full of photographs of the latest luridly colourful ideas for bathrooms, shag pile carpets and decorating in general.  They were all hideous.  I can't believe we had so little taste in those days.

The settlement of Walkaway supposedly got it's name because the first would be farmer in the area sowed paddocks of wheat too late in the season and they could not be harvested, so he walked away from the investment.  A couple of years later a new would be farmer came along and found a beautiful self seeded crop ready to harvest.  Hmm, not sure how much truth may be in that story.