Sarah has insisted on stopping in Coolgardie despite the 42 degree heat because it is where her great-grandfather was born. We stop in at Southern Cross and for once, Griff and Augie have a legitimate complaint that it’s too hot.

The dirt starts to get progressively redder and the vegetation more sparse. It’s 3 pm when we finally make it to Coolgardie.

Coolgardie was the first of the WA Gold Rush towns. After a couple of guys discovered gold there in 1892, it grew into a large shanty town filled to the brim with prospectors trying their luck. The town structure had formalised more by the time my great- great- grandfather came out from Cornwall to supervise a gold mine there. My great-grandfather Ken was born there in 1896.

Back then, the waterholes used by the indigenous people (who had saved many lives by showing hapless prospectors where they were) were drying out from overuse. There was no reliable water supply and it needed to be shipped in on camels and carts. Many people unable to afford water died of disease and dehydration.

All we could think was how Sarah's poor great- great grandmother Annie coped. She was fresh from the cool climate of Cornwall and dealing with a baby in that god awful heat with no access to water. 

She must have been very tough if we are here to tell her story.