When you are planning a holiday, and you have opted for an Australian camping adventure, where do you start? Do you plan an extended trip covering lots of kilometres and venture somewhere over east or into the Northwest? Do look closer to home and visit areas you have previously overlooked in favour of grander-sounding places? When you live in the Southwest, coming out of winter, a September holiday into warmer climes is definitely the main focus. We chose the middle option, looking to combine a Golden Outback holiday with some off-grid camping and 4WD-ing.
Given WA’s Golden Outback covers such a massive area, we then broke it down into smaller locales: The Inland Murchison and Upper Gascoyne. Thoughts then turned to campfire stories from previous holidays about go-to destinations, as well as the oft-used Google favourite “10 Best Things to Do In …” Having previously visited the Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Mornington Wilderness Camp on the Gibb River Road, we opted to start the holiday at their Mt Gibson Sanctuary. So, on the first day of our holiday we had an enjoyable and relatively easy drive from Bunbury to the turnoff on the Great Northern Highway, some 73km north of Wubin. From their Quartz Campground, we chose to do two of their self-drive tours, Greenstone Hills and Mushroom Rocks via Exclosure. After our 2-night stay, we crossed the highway, our destination for night being in the Karara Rangeland
We had previously downloaded the Karara Rangeland Park map from the Parks & Wildlife Service “Explore Parks WA” website. We stopped off at Mongers Lake Lookout and Camel Soad, making a note to include an overnight stop at Camel Soak as part of a future trip, so that we can enjoy sunset drinks and nibbles on top of the rock formation. The map directions do not quite match reality, and we were unsuccessful in finding the Damperwah State Farm, moving on instead to the John Forrest Lookout. On the first part of the Lookout Road, we crossed fingers as passing an on-coming vehicle would have been interesting, to say the least, given the width of the road and the high embankments
My job was to open the gate in the Rabbit-Vermin Proof Fence, at which point it looked like a change of underwear could be necessary: On opening the gate, the loudest of all loud sirens sounded and I must have jumped 2 feet upwards and sideways in sheer fright! I fully expected to see army vehicles or attack helicopters suddenly appear, thinking we must have inadvertently ventured into an army training ground or a top-secret facility of some sort! When my heart rate and blood pressure returned to some semblance of normality, we worked out the hellish noise is designed to deter unwanted animals from approaching the gate area.
From the John Forrest Lookout we drove along the Perenjori-Rothsay Road and set up the camper trailer for an overnight stop at the Damperwah Camp Zone. There was a little to-ing and fro-ing in site selection even though we were the only ones there, as ants’ nests and the direction of the wind had to be taken into consideration. I must confess that I lost the inaugural Damperwah Camp Zone bocce championship and had to console myself with an excellent glass of semillon sauvignon blanc!
We were unsuccessful also in finding the Rothsay Cemetery, deterred by large, threating signs regarding accessing mine-site property and the consequences thereof. We were disappointed, as we find old outback cemeteries fascinating places to gain an insight into what life was like back then. We subsequently found out at a later campfire that you ignore the threats, venture down the road a little way and there is a small cemetery sign.
This disappointment was more than offset however by a visit to the Shearing Shed at Thundelarra Station, on the Yalgoo-Ninghan Road. Thundelarra serves as the home for the Department of Biodiversity & Conservation (DBCA) Ranger’s base. We understand that between the Ranger and various Camp Hosts, artifacts, tools and shearing implements, and other odds and ends have been collected from around the Station. These are displayed on tables and walls in the 6-stand Shearing Shed and the mechanical shearing equipment is still in place, as is most of the infrastructure. The Station dates back prior to 1891 and several of the old buildings have been restored, including the Shearers’ Quarters.
From Thundelarra, we went back down the road to join our fellow volunteer Track Care WA Inc (TCWA) Members on a 4-day working bee to restore and renovate the Shearers’ Quarters at Warriedar. Nineteen of us really did an amazing job in the time we had, re-stumping, putting in new bearers and floorboards, re-attaching a whole side wall that was literally flapping in the breeze, repairing the roof, re-building the internal walls, replacing and re-stumping the verandah posts and giving a lick of paint to whatever time would permit. In addition, Members worked on cleaning the Homestead, which is open to the public, as well as minor structural repairs and re-painting. The Shearers’ Washhouse received some “TLC”, unsafe timbers attached to it were removed and the outside of the long-drop toilets was repainted. Interesting discussions and laughter accompanied each day’s “happy hour” and each night’s post-dinner campfire. If you do visit Warriedar, I would encourage you to sign the Visitors’ Book inside the Homestead, as this is a means of letting DBCA know people are visiting
To be continued….