A very cold and gusty wind was blowing when we woke up this morning, even with the sun shining.

On the way back to the van yesterday we stopped to chat briefly with the poor lady with the motorhome problem. The home had left the caravan park earlier in the week and then she came back and has stayed here. We asked her how the problem was going and she said that when she took the motorhome down to the garage for repair, they discovered that the wholesaler in Perth had only sent part of the item she needed.

The garage people were not at all impressed with the lack of service from them and apologised profusely. As she said, it was beyond their control, but she is stressing about the situation. The work at the garage and parts will be costing her over $2000 plus the unexpected cost of staying in this caravan park. We both think she is on a fairly strict budget.

So, this morning our first stop is Coles to pick up a couple of Sultana Light fruit cakes to take with us when we leave. These are the only ones that Russ enjoys but the price has skyrocketed up to $6.35 a cake.

We headed to Darkan with a planned stop at the Coal Mine Lookout on the way. This coal mine is owned by Premier Coal and is WA’s largest coal producer, operating an open‑cut mine near Collie that employs about 500 people and supplies coal mainly to the Muja Power Station.

Recent reports show the company is cutting 70–100 jobs due to declining demand for coal‑fired power. It has a mining history that spans 75 years. The mine runs 24/7 and provides thermal coal for the state’s south‑west electricity grid.

Discussions are underway about potentially merging WA’s two remaining coal miners—Premier Coal and Griffin Coal—to stabilise operations as the WA government is retiring coal‑fired power assets by 2030, contributing to declining demand for the product.

A modern open cut operation, Premier has a truck and shovel/excavator fleet along with state-of-the-art crushing, blending, and train and truck loading facilities.

Annually, total coal production from Premier Coal is around 3 million tonnes, with around 90% used for power generation and steam raising. The remaining coal is mostly used for synthetic rutile production.

Rutile is industrially important as a source of titanium metal and titanium dioxide pigment, which is used in paints, plastics, ceramics, and sunscreens for its bright white colour and opacity.

When we stopped at the Lookout for photos we bumped into Muddy from Buckingham. He has apparently worked all places in the area dealing with coal and is now retired but was a fount of information about it all.

This coal mining operation is getting close to its use-by capacity, and he informed us that he is hopeful they will not fill too much of it and let it fill with water for another lake in the area. Believe you me, it is exceptionally deep at the moment.

He went on to say they have been and still are pumping ground water away from the working area, and said if it fills with water the pH balance would need to be checked for safety purposes – like at Lake Kepwari and Black Diamond.

At the front of the Lookout is a huge Electric Rope Shovel all set up for photos.

An electric rope shovel is a large, electrically powered mining machine designed to scoop and load rock, ore, and overburden in open-pit mines.

It uses steel wire ropes and a large bucket (dipper) to dig into a rock face, swing, and dump material into haul trucks.

These machines are capable of loading up to 100 metric tons of material in a single pass and are known for their low maintenance and high reliability, making them ideal for large-scale surface mining operations.

We continued on our way to Darkan, and I read some more while Russ drove. He also put in some waypoints if he saw an area that showed some colour in the vegetation, so we could check it out on the way back to Collie.

When I read, I cannot do different voices for different people, but I do try and put the tone of the passage into my voice. At one stage during a conversation in the book the character stopped in the middle of a sentence and yelled “Duck” so, of course, I did the same thing when reading the passage. I thought Russ was about to run off the road and couldn’t stop laughing. He was not impressed – laughing face here.

When we got to Darkan we re-fuelled at the same place as last time, and at the same price which is terrific, and then headed into Darkan for a toilet stop and some of our packed lunch.

For the moment there are not many new location names to find, but I did come across Ningip Gully.

And Russell is a tin pot – he just says it is his spidey senses tingling that tells him when to stop for flowers.

We had taken one of the side tracks into the bush when we came across a burnt-out wreck, so Russ pulled up for me to get a photo. I opened the door and stepped out and said ‘Tin Pot’ to him. We had pulled up right beside a Blue Orchid. We haven’t had one of these as yet on this trip.

We also stopped at the road verge in another place and came across donkey orchids and some other flowers. And then we discovered our very first ever Jug Orchids. I say again, Tin Pot.

At 2:30pm when we arrived back at the van the temperature was at 17 degrees, and we were still both wearing our thick jackets.