This is another of the high quality and reasonable Council run caravan parks in this area of Western Australia. Nice big drive through sites and modern, very clean amenity blocks. Let's say 4 Stars for these ones. The girl at the Visitor Centre was very friendly and helpful as well. The two recommended must sees for Menzies according to her were the Art work at Lake Ballard and the local historic cemetery.
Day one was spent doing laundry, cleaning, and charging up our electrical/water systems. It was sunny but cool most of the day.
Sunday morning we woke to somewhat windy and overcast conditions. We all jumped in the Jeep for the 50 Km trip out to Lake Ballard. The road was unsealed for the majority but in excellent condition that allowed for a relatively quick trip. Once we pulled up to the Lake we realized the scope of the Art Project. There are 51 individual statues all located approximately 100 metres from the next one. All are laid out over a huge area of Lake Ballard which is a Salt bed. Unfortunately with recent rains it was a very muddy salt bed. The weather was cool and the wind was picking up as well which made it even less enjoyable. I've attached a few pictures below of the Art???? They say art is in the eye of the beholder but none of us were too impressed. Supposedly these figures were models of local residents that had been cast in clay then shrunk down and molded in metal. I couldn't help but wonder how the subjects felt when they actually saw their finished replica. I know my reaction would have been "I posed naked for this??" We walked around and looked at half a dozen or so of the statues before returning to the car. Spent some 15 minutes trying to scrape the Lake Ballard mud off our shoes and the Art Work out of our minds.
A bit of a quiet trip back to town as we tried to absorb our experience. We stopped at the cemetery just on the outskirts of town on our return journey. This was more interesting for our group. Many of the markers were made of metal as the town had a blacksmith but not a stone mason. Very interesting and moving as you visited the various graves. Obviously this was a harsh life as so many died young. Unfortunately a number of the metal headstones used glass to encase flowers etc, and had been damaged by vandals. Such a shame as would have been beautiful in their original state.
The wind had really picked up by the time we returned to the caravan park so we all got our awnings down as quickly as we could. The rest of the afternoon was spent finishing up our laundry, blog catchup, and touching base with family. Menzies was another of the friendly communities of this area that appear to be struggling to survive. Would highly recommend this area of Western Australia for tourists as they are very nice caravan parks with a lot of history, priced reasonably.
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