Lake Indoon

The shire websites says Lake Indoon is a popular camping area.

We stayed four nights under a few large gum trees by the lake; one night we were one of four, two nights solo and the last night one other.

A beaut spot with lots of bird life.

Toilets and gas BBQ... bonus!

We're north of the fires further down the coast that has forced the evacuation of Cervantes, but can see the smoke and occasional plume indicating a real flare up. 

Over the roof of the car... they aren't clouds. 
That's smoke from significant fires well south near Cervantes. 

Its a freshwater lake but brackish. Also, with signs indicating the potential of elevated levels of bacteria in the lake, we won't be swimming. 

We relaxed, read, cooked, ate and walked.

Bushfire smoke = good sunsets. 

We did a couple of drives to towns around the area.

The Big Tractor, a new addition to Carnemah.

As recently as the 80s, many of these towns were really thriving. This last 20, 30 or 40 years or so has seen a dramatic decline in their fortunes as families sell up and farms are consolidated into huge agribusinesses.

These towns all over Australia are dying. Many try to remain viable with various enterprises, and some have worked, but those towns that are more than a couple of hours from a city, and/or not on a major road, are becoming ghost towns. 

We drove south to Jurien Bay where people from Cervantes were being evacuated to because of a significant fire. 
We spoke to a local at Mitre 10 who said that the people here at Jurien were quite worried about the fire coming all the way to them like it did a few years ago. 

There are some enormous salt lakes 

The grand old homestead at Carnamah has been restored

We watched this enormous grain train taking on its load of wheat. It's a slow process as the train never stops, inching along as it's filled from the hoppers. 

With a change in the weather forecast,  we moved a little south to Jurien Bay. It's only two hours from Perth so a bit of a growing holiday town.