Wooramel Woes

October 23-31

With 10 days up my sleeve and my partner in crime, Warren all lined up to come, we had to formulate a plan to visit some more of this spectacular state. Having done 3 trips this year already out into the Great Victoria Desert, it was time for a change. I had two thoughts of localities and put them to Warren. We could do a Wheatbelt/Goldfields tour (something well overdue on my schedule) or try something different: maybe up into the Murchison region. We decided on the latter. Time would tell if going a bit later in the year would be a good thing or not.

So Tuesday morning, I arranged to meet Warren on the freeway. Best laid plans go astray. He rang me when he was getting close to my abode, so I got on the road and made contact via radio. I turned up the freeway, expecting to pull up in an emergency lane for him to join me. Radio coms started to get scratchy (which was concerning), and soon after, non existent. Oh crap, here we go again, visions of new years eve coming back to haunt me. This time though, I had phone coverage and made a call. Somewhere, somehow, our coms had got mixed up and Warren didn't turn onto the freeway, but decided on a parallel running road a few Km's east of me. Ok, I said, I will meet you on that road, just past an intersection we both knew. I arrived first, and soon enough, I had Warren waiting at the traffic lights behind me, so I slowly made progress northwards until we were joined. Disaster averted!

The plan for today was to head into some unknown country, camp up at a site I had never visited, Coal Seam Conservation park. On the way, I would knock off a cache or two, too.

First port of call was Mingenew, where a drive up to the lookout produced the first cache for the trip. The weather warming and the sky sultana's getting friendly, we continued North.

It was only a short hop from here onto Coalseam, and we had arrived pretty early, so a drive around was called for. A month earlier and it would have been nothing short of spectacular. Blankets of now dead wildflowers were covering the ground in blankets. It would have been so colourful here back then, with the wildflower season this year a pretty good one. So I knocked off another cache and we went to set up camp early. It was great being camp and able to just sit back and casually set up for the night with a beer in hand.

Pre dinner and before dark, Warren and myself walked across the river to check out an old shaft that had been dug chasing one of those seams of coal. The dark patches that can be seen in the river bed on the left are some of those seams meeting the river.

A leisurely 400Km day and we got down to business of making dinner. Unfortunately for Warren, he cut his finger and we had a bit of first aid training to put to use. Little did we know what the next 9 days had in store for us. We spent the night listening to a recording of Len Beadell recounting his exploits of work in the interior, opening up country and cutting tracks through virgin desert. Whilst it is known he was a hard man to work for, he is the most humorous and interesting fellow to listen to. I sat there spell bound, picturing in my mind his stories to the tracks of his I have travelled. A take your hat off to kind of guy.

Day 2 and we hit the road North. A cache or two on the way breaking up the journey. A stop at Butterabby graves was an unexpected find. A tale of woe of indigenous resistance nd the subsequent reprisal of the justice system of the time. Further reading can be had here:

Butterabby Graves history

And so it was in short time we made Mullewa. The town has a reputation I don't need to go into here, but our expectations were blown away. A couple of hours in the town, with a cache knocked off as well, we both left town in awe. To spend a couple of days here would be easy to do. Something we must do at some stage in the future.

Heading North now, the country becoming more hostile, we dropped into Stockmans pool for a look. Whilst the weather was still quite warm, the clouds had Moved in.



A couple of hundred K's up the well formed gravel road we hit Murchison Roadhouse. A great place for fuel and an oasis in very dry, parched country. Green grass everywhere and a magnificent looking campground. With fuel and an ice cream down, we continued on. The plan to be at Bilung pool later that afternoon.

Passing the turn off to Errabiddy Bluff, we ventured in for a quick look. Whilst we didn't really have the time to spare, and the fact it was pretty warm, it would be great to climb the bluff and explore the surrounding hills at another time.



I love all this country out here. I have read A.C Gregory's journals from the mid 1800's exploring the area and I have always wanted to explore out here. This trip however, I can only touch base. maybe another time I can put in some research and find further places to explore in the region?

A C Gregory


With time getting on, we reached the Wooramel River around 1730 in the afternoon. my mate Trev, told me of a little known place here, the Wooramel River Gorges. Not finding a lot on the net, I had found a track on Google Earth that looked like what Trev had described. So Warren and myself shot up the said track.

A little rough, but nothing extravagant, I had an over voltage alarm pop up on the ultra gauge. That was weird. And a kilometre further on, a second instance. I said to Warren I would check under bonnet to make sure all was ok, but first, we need to grab some pictures, so we can get to Bilung before dark.

With pictures done, it was time for the last 20 odd K's to camp. Jump in the car, turn the key and click...click...click....

Crap.

Popping the bonnet revealed nothing to the eye, so out with a multimeter. When trying to crank, my battery voltage was dropping below 10V. That's not good. So I figured we would just jump start it, get to camp and look at the problem in the morning.

Best laid plans gone astray, this battery want having anything of jump starting. We were stuck here. With a fair wind howling and the sun going down fast, it was time to make camp: where I had stopped. Which was rather inopportune, because I wasn't exactly positioned for camping where I stood. Anyway, we just had to make do with what we had, hoping I didn't need to go for a wee walk in the middle of the night, cause only meters away was a fair drop.....

 

Come the morning, I decided the only course of resolution was to remove my aux battery and place it under the bonnet for starting duties. A major inconvenience because all my accessories power is fed by that battery - fridge and all.

Having to pull all the rear end of the car apart just to get to the battery was a pain too:

But it beats walking.

With the starter battery out, I delved a little deeper to investigate a front end squeak that had also developed that day. My fears were realised when I found the strut shaft wasn't in center - again....the upper strut mount has failed after being replaced only 6 months ago, with very little rough work in between. Not happy Jan.

There is nothing I could do about the strut for now. I just had to limp it through the trip. Fitting the aux batter under the bonnet was a struggle too. It was a bit high and I couldn't stretch the negative lead to fit. Ferreting around in my kit, I find a piece of bar, part of an exhaust bracket bent in an L shape with a hole each end.In the best bush mechanics style, I put a shifter on each end, bent it sort of straight, and now I had a busbar I could bolt to the battery and bolt to the negative cable. Electrical connection sorted, would the battery start the car?

No drama's at all. Thank goodness for carrying a redundant supply. Getting a tow out here would be expensive. So with just enough clearance (and a little persuasion of terminals), we got the bonnet shut and started loading all the gear back in. The starter battery will not fit the hole of the aux battery, so I cant use it for anything. I will have to find room for that somewhere in the car. just for the record - after my original oem battery failed at lake rason on mowing the Spackman, I lashed out and bought an expensive optima, thinking I don't want starter issues again. Well that didn't quite work out either, 6 months and its either dropped a cell or has short circuited. Not happy again, Jan.

The next drama, how to power the fridge. Again bush mechanics 101 - turn the power on to my rear Anderson plug, and plug an Anderson extention cable I have, through the back door and to the fridge. So I now have my fridge running, but I am down to a single battery for both starting and fridge duties. Not a good prospect in warm weather, but I suppose, we are moving every day.

So now back on the road, we have decisions to make. I decided to give Mt Augustus a miss for the time being and head straight into Gascoyne Junction to see if I could get another battery. failing that, I would have phone coverage and could see what either Carnarvon or Geraldton had available.

Arriving in Gassy, first thing I had to do was eat. Cheap as here at the roadhouse, but the $20 burger would allow me to skip a week of meals:

Finding a battery in Gassy proved futile and a phone call to Geraldton to have the optima replaced under warranty wasn't much better. So I decided I would just complete the trip on the one battery as I had Warren to jump me if required. So another couple of hundred K's later, and Mt Augustus comes into view. The scenery out her is nothing short of spectacular, long plains of flat ground broken by intermittent hills and mounts.

We arrived to Mt Augustus pretty weary after a day of hardship, but we had lots of green grass. Another oasis in extremely dry country.

With the dawning of a new day comes new challenges. Warren has found good reason not to park under trees with masses of Major Mitchell's flying around - Guano.  His car was covered in it. So even though it was bore water, warren decided that was less damaging to his paint work than the uric acid in the poop. A quick clean and wipe down and he was sorted. The bird life here is amazing .....and extremely noisy too.

Proving the car still starts, we head off for a day exploring the mountain -

Mt. Augustus is more than twice the size of Uluru. Unlike Uluru, which is a monolith  and, in general, devoid of plant growth, Mt. Augustus is a monocline (an asymmetrical anticline).

Clear as mud now?

First port of call, Kotka trail. There I pick up the cache 1/2 way up the gorge. Then its onto Cattle Pool:

What an amazing place. I cant believe how many little oasis's exist in such dry country.

We walk downstream for a bit and I spy an old piece of machinery in the scrub to go and investigate:

Lunch now done in the shade of the river gums, we venture on to the Southern side of the rock for the Flinstone rock walk to check out the petroglyphs:. 

It's becoming quite warm today, peaking at around 42 degree's according to the car. So major trail walks aren't going to happen.

Onto Edney's trail for a couple more petroglyphs:

The southern slope of the mount creating a picturesque view.

I would love to know of the significance of the following figure, scribed into the cave wall. I'm sure its a common indigenous image;

Before we know it, it's late afternoon, and being so hot, it's time for camp and a refreshing ale. Our job here at the mountain is done. You can only do so much being so hot. the sun going down over the mount makes a wonderful backdrop:

The following morning we departed Mt Augustus for what we hoped would be the Kennedy ranges. The plan was to come in from the North, but there was an issue. Before we left home, the roads were closed and so too was the Kennedy Ranges. We could get no reliable intelligence at the Mt as to when the road was going to open. It was supposed to be open once we got there 2 days ago, but wasn't. So the only way to find out was to drive down.

Unfortunately, the road still wasn't open so we had to go back to Gassy Jct. Once there, we find the access road to the Kennedy's from the South wasn't open either, so out plans for the Kennedy's was shot. What to do now......Well I drove around a bit and found a nice little camp just off the banks of the Gascoyne River, well shaded and open. Seeing it was pretty bloody hot, we decided to pull up for camp early here and cool off with a couple of beers.

And that evening, Warren cooked some apple pie in the camp oven for a birthday desert. Nice one. A short 300Km day was done.

We now needed a plan B. With the Kennedy's out of the equation, we decided to head to the coast for some cool relief. However on the way, we passed the track to the Eastern side of the Kennedy's and decided to go part way up for a look.

Until that is, warren got himself bogged trying to cross the Gascoyne river. Well, he was stuck, not bogged in all reality, a tyre pressure adjustment and he ambled out. I tried to con Warren into going across again so we could see some of the Kennedy's, but it was hot and he wasn't keen so we stuck to plan....Carnarvon.

We dropped in at a most remarkable place on the way: Rocky Pool. We scouted around to find a suitable camp, however, it was again very hot and the only shade to be found were in spots just a bit small to camp at. Otherwise it would have been perfect.

Arriving in Carnarvon, we grabbed some lunch, did a quick tour of the town then headed out to Quobba for the night. The temperature was certainly cooler and we had to seek some shelter behind an old fishing shack to escape the onshore breeze.

In the middle of the night, I heard what I thought was rats rooting around. So I waited patiently until I could hear they were near, sprung to attention from the swag to spot the little bugger only to find........crabs, haha. All these crabs, about 3" across had come out to play. With breakfast done, it was time to head up to the HMAS Sydney memorial to knock off a few caches.

Spotting some limestone on the side of the track from a recent grading, I was surprised to see all this limestone impregnated with fossils:

Back into Carnarvon, we decided we would make Wooramel River retreat for the night. A paid campsite on a station, but I had heard good things about it. And the things I had heard were correct. $13 bucks a night, they have their own artesian spa, a fantastic shaded campground on the banks of the Wooramel River - dry as a bone at this point - showers, flushing dunnies....It was well worth the $13. 

 

A relatively relaxed short day:

Passing the overlander roadhouse, Another cache was calling:

Then we decided to have lunch at Northhampton. The Ploughman's lunch was delicious. A bit different from my usual hamburger.....

But I had higher duties to attend to. My new trackable:  All Aboard TB7Y9HQ needed to be released in a rail oriented spot. Whilst I was a bit worried about this spot, being somewhat open and prone to being found by non cachers, I took the risk. It paid off, it was collected by another cacher, who is now looking for a suitable spot to drop it off.

We ended up at Ellendale Pool, another spot I had heard about, but had never been to. It was a good choice:

There was a gentleman who had home built his mobile home on a man truck base. It was pretty spectacular and didn't want for anything, right down to its own desal plant and all. It was on a shakedown trip. Funny enough, some 6 months have elapsed from this trip to when I write this blog entry, I have seen it quite a few times South of Perth.

In the morning, day 9 was home time. A relatively leisurely drive home, saw us complete out trip. Lots of woes, but lots of high's too. We have left room to go see some more of the region, the Kennedy's in particular.

Trip Stats:


 8 nights under canvas

3067  km travelled

362 L fuel used

Best consumption: 10.9L/100, Worst 12.7L/100

for a trip average of  11.8L/100

cost of fuel $617

camp fees  $24 - $11 at Mt Augustus, $13 Wooramel River retreat.

With a 4 dayer prior to Peaceful Bay and 2 at WAGB 2018, the running tally of nights under canvas now stands at 38


Trip Vids: