Having done sections of the Woolwagon Pathway and the Kingsford-Smith Mail Run outback pathways the year before as part of our Mt Augustus holiday, I cannot speak highly enough of the historical signs along the way. It really is worth taking the time to stop and check out the information – it is a glimpse back in time, as the photo of the “Cobbled Road” indicates! Be warned though: The distances on the mud-map need to be used as a guide only, otherwise it is quite easy to sail on by a landmark, necessitating a more than 3-point turn when towing a camper traile
Possibly the favourite part of the trip was our stay at Winnemia! Track Care WA Inc (TCWA) have restored the shearers’ dining room, adding verandahs and again collecting and displaying artifacts from a bygone era. On walking around the building, we were gobsmacked to find no less than 2 flushing toilets, with door latches that are nothing short of ingenious and almost worth a visit to Winnemia just to see them! But wait … no, it’s not steak knives but something even better – a working shower! Unfortunately, between TCWA’s visit in April and our visit in September, the hot water donkey grew the legs of its namesake and wandered off. However, I discovered that, after a long, hot day, if you are the first person to use the shower you get the benefit of all the warm water in the pipes! Needless to say, the other half was less than impressed but a shower is a shower, regardless of the temperature.
We had the place to ourselves, so we opted to have the first night’s pre-dinner drinks sitting on the verandah looking out across the landscape. At the risk of sounding a bit naff, we role-played being the station owners back then, inventing the mischief the children got up to during the course of the day and imagining what that day’s station activities might have involved. In all honesty, it was quite a sobering experience and again highlighted just how much life has changed in the last 100 years or so.
The next day saw us tackling the western side of the Kennedy Loop Trail (KLT), on the same basis as before. A word to the wise: On leaving Winnemia and crossing the Gascoyne River, it is best to follow the directions given at the Gascoyne Tourist Bureau. When we did it, you headed towards the right, not straight ahead. The former got us safely across; the latter would have resulted in quicksand and, if we had survived that, falling into a deep-water channel. The track was far more rocky than it’s eastern counterpart and we stopped off at all the points of interest marked on the map
Once again, sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of a 4WD, it reminded us both of just how difficult it would have been to survive in and traverse the land, for peoples going all the way back to the beginning of time. We came to within about 5km of joining up where we had stopped on the eastern side of the KLT but decided it would be wiser to turn around, back to camp. A lot of people would be a lot more adventurous than us, but we try to avoid 4WD-ing at dusk and into the night, if possible.
To be continued….