On the Great Northern Highway, 520 km east of Derby. Scene of the famous 1895 gold rush, the first in Western Australia. The gold rush attracted more than 1,000 prospectors to this remote spot on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, and within four years the gold had all but run out. Then news came through that gold had been discovered 1,500 km south at Kalgoorlie – and prospectors left as quickly as they had arrived.

You can still see the remants of the gold prospectors’ settlement at Old Town, in the hills 17 km to the east down the unsealed Duncan Highway. All that’s left are abandoned digs, where the odd minuscule nugget is still sometimes discovered; the remains of the post office; the cemetery; and a large mound of empty bottles. Nearby is Caroline Pool, where some of the prospectors (occasionally) washed, and you can swim.

Off the road to Old Town, 7 km from Hall’s Creek, is the so-called China Wall, a curious vein of quartz above a pool. (And it does indeed bear a vague resemblance to the Great Wall of China).