Great Eastern Highway

Great Eastern Highway
The drive from Perth to Kalgoorie along the Great Eastern Highway is long (nearly 600km) and uneventful. The first hour heading east from Perth winds through the city’s suburbs and the Swan River Valley, then up a steep slope into the Darling Range; you may encounter nasty traffic near the city. Road trains rule this highway; beware of wide loads bearing machinery, farm equipment, and even buildings on the truck bed. The last hard stretch between the tiny town of Southern Cross (really no more than a wide spot in the highway) and Coolgardie is 200km of very rough road through the middle of nowhere. This part of the highway is poorly maintained, and even the truckers hate it. Fuel up when you can (in Southern Cross and Coolgar¬die)—it’s a long way to the next petrol station.
Merredin (pop. 3700) is the largest town on the Great Eastern between Coolgardie and Perth. The friendly Shell Merredin Roadhouse makes a good pit stop, with tasty, inexpensive home-cooked meals and takeaway (open daily 7am-10pm).
Coolgardie has exceedingly little to offer the average traveler. It’s a dusty, empty, vaguely unsettling frontier town that serves mainly as a residential satellite for the families of miners working in Kalgoorlie. The main street (the 94 Hwy, known as Bay-ley St in town) houses a tourist office, post office, and police station, on your right when driving toward Perth. If you must spend the night in Coolgardie, the Denver City Hotel on Bayley St has simple, unheated rooms for. The noise from the rather unfriendly pub downstairs may keep you up. At the west end of town, die Caltex Roadhouse rents clean rooms for. There are rio ATMs in town, but most madhouses have EFTPOS.