Halfway between Perth and the SA border, this outpost is home to around 500 people.
Story + Photo Aleisha Orr
Splendid isolation” is the best way Norseman photographer Lynn Webb can describe life in his town of about 500 people. He first moved there with his wife and three children more than 38 years ago, for a job as a mechanical fitter in the local gold mine.
The town is halfway between the inland mining city of Kalgoorlie–Boulder and the coastal getaway of Esperance. It’s 724km from Perth and a similar distance from the SA border.
Lynn spends a good portion of his time on his own exploring the vast landscapes surrounding the town, and the walls of his gallery mostly celebrate the area’s landscapes, including the salt lakes and Great Western Woodlands that surround the town. The largest unfragmented temperate woodlands left in the world, the Great Western Woodlands are twice the size of Tasmania, and support a fifth of all of Australia’s known plant species, including hundreds of varieties of eucalypts. Lynn’s archives also provide glimpses into the town’s social history over the past four decades.“I just go out looking and if I find something that interests me, I’ll pursue it and get a camera out,” he says. Some of the land he explores has no visible signs of anyone having visited since early prospectors passed through more than a century ago.
This story excerpt is from issue #164
Outback Magazine: Dec/Jan 2026
