The Trash-fields Highway

I am trying my best to avoid overstating my disdain for the world’s taste for gold, a very artificial measure of value. Aesthetically pretty, yes; a measure of wealth, no. But riding through this area known as The Goldfields, one can’t but be overwhelmed (smothered?) by its atmosphere. Nowhere is it most glaring is its namesake road: The Goldfields Highway (not Goldfields Rd.), which I rode for two days to Menzies. I personally renamed it to The Trash-fields Highway– because of the trash, both real and metaphorical, strewn along the entire length of the highway.

I didn’t plan on riding this highway. I had planned on riding a dirt road to Menzies, but it had rained heavily the day before I started, and I knew the dirt roads would be muddy and not passable with my bike. So I chose the paved highway instead.

I can’t state as a matter of fact whether the love for gold and a disdain for the environment go hand in hand. But I would surmise that it does. Most noticeable as I rode the highway were miles and miles of trash strewn everywhere. It is a highway used a lot by maintenance vehicles servicing mines in the area. Years of unsightly debris– broken bottles, used toilet tissue, dirty rags– line both sides of the highway; it was not a pleasure to ride this narrow highway. Perhaps it’s not unsightly as one whizzes by at 60 mph in a sealed air-conditioned vehicle looking straight ahead. But the ugly mess is very noticeable to one on a bicycle.

Even when I was trying to find a camping spot by the side of the road for the evening, I had trouble because it was difficult to find a site that was even remotely clean. I had to ride further back from the road.

It’s a naturally pretty area. But it has been bespoiled by people who think that open country is so big that it will absorb any rubbish you throw its way. Those with any mind toward science knows otherwise.

Western Australia tries to attract tourists to this gold rush history by creating the Golden Quest Discovery Trail where you go from site to site and look at all the results of the gold rush. I just find that period of history, both in America and here in Australia, a maddening display of human folly. The highway has some empty fields where once towns used to thrive. Goongarrie and Comet Vale were born from the gold rush and died less than 30 years later when the gold petered out. That is just a waste.

Menzies, where I’m staying now, once boasted over 10,000 people. Now it is a shell of its former past (106 in 2016), trying to survive by drawing in tourists to its gold rush history.

In Menzies, I met a retired man who is spending his retirement years “metal-detecting.” “I’ve found about 3.8 grams of gold so far.” he said. I met another man in a bar who is still prospecting around the area. The payoff of a rich strike still drives some people, even though signs of dead towns litter the area. I guess the lure of gold still grabs some people to this day, as testified by these men. The chance for a quick win lottery is as alive around the world as it ever was.