Cue

Awake very early so ended up getting up to take some sunrise photos in our campsite. Indulged in bacon and egg rolls from the cafe on wheels in the town. Yummy. 

Then headed off to Cue. Only 125km. 

We decided to stay overnight as there were interesting things to do. Cue is an old gold mining town where gold was discovered in the Main Street in 1892. It was named after Tom Cue one of the early prospectors who became major figure in the town's development. Such was the wealth of the town many grandiose buildings were built many of which are still there today. The towns fortunes began to decline in early 1900's. By 1940's population had fallen to 1000. 

After lunch we went exploring. We found a ghost town called Big Bell. It became a town in 1936 but was deserted by mid 1950's. 

Highlight of the day was our trip to Walga Rock which is said to be the second biggest monolith in Australia, being 5km in diameter and 1.5km long. First we drove around it. 

The aboriginal art in a 60 m long overhang on the western side was quite spectacular. There is the largest gallery of hand paintings in this area. It is obviously a place of great meaning to the local Aboriginal people. 

Overhang containing the art

There is also a white ochre sailing ship painted over some of the aboriginal art and the origin of this is puzzling seeing it is 325 km from coast. It is thought that it could have been done by a Dutch sailor who had been marooned and adopted by the Aboriginals or by an Afghan cameleer. It looks like it could have an Arabic inscription so my bet is the latter

Then we climbed the rock. It wasn't too hard and the views from the top were amazing. 

 

View from top

 

Suddenly the day was coming to a close so we returned to our home on wheels in Cue.