Gunbarrel and Old Gunbarrel Highway Travel Diary 2006

20 August 2006
Meekatharra – Wiluna – 80 km along Gunbarrel Highway
A very warm night with a gentle breeze coming from the south-west for a change. We packed rather slowly and both had showers. We refuelled, posted some postcards and headed for Wiluna with an expectation of shocking corrugations, only to find the whole road was wide, beautiful gravel and almost as good as bitumen.
A couple of kilometres out of town we came to a small hillside that was completely covered in pale blue mulla mulla and equal proportions of a dark red flowering bush about 2/3 metre high – the red coming from numerous flower bracts.
As we were getting back in the car Megan spotted two parrots which we decided were mulga parrots – very pretty and despite them hanging around a lot in a thick mulga bush we couldn't photograph them very well.

There are a lot of flowers along the road among the mainly mulga vegetation in flat barren patches of earth. At one point we stopped and photographed large patches of a tiny pink flower only a couple of centimetres high.

We got into Wiluna at 1 pm and drove around the town. We stopped in the beautifully kept garden of the shire offices for a couple cup of tea and ham salad roll. The office is in an ex-hospital but well preserved and obviously loved by someone.
We checked in at the police station – they didn't ask for permit details and then headed out on the Gunbarrel 80kms and found a good bush camp spot in a cleared area with plenty of plenty of mulga, shade and firewood. The only drawback are lots of flies and we donned our fly nets for the first time!

We saw a few emus over the last couple of days – the first ones for a long time. They looked in prime condition.

Megan cooked two-minute noodles with bacon, eggs, mushrooms and beans – very good. We did some sudokus and sat around the fire under a perfect starry sky and listened to some nice classical music CDs on the car system till 10 pm.

21 August 2006
80 km east of Wiluna to Carnegie Station
The Butcher Birds started early as usual and without a lot of support from other birds. Megan did some sketching and we packed up at 9 am and headed east. The road is in really good condition – graded almost all the way to Carnegie. We were able to travel between 70 – 80 kph easily and comfortably – just watching out for the odd little rough patch, washaway or dips. On this run we recorded 14.8 L per 100 K.

Near the turnoff to Old Windidda ruins we passed a pretty little lake on Banjo Creek to our left. The damp margins prevented access but supported the carpet of what looked like tiny blue native violets.

We stopped at Wongawol Creek – which has big waterholes, huge river red gums and would be a really good campsite. There were lots of nesting ring neck parrots and galahs.



A bit further on at Mingol Camp (Harry Johnson Waterhole) we had lunch. Again a near permanent waterhole with huge river red gums and a noisy flock of resident galahs. It also had a Nissan hut type shelter with tables benches and an old fuel stove. The curved corrugated iron roof was the nesting site of swallows. A number of iron and wire bed bases were secured to cement slabs. Cattle yards and windmill were next door. We wondered if this was their version of a high country cattlemen's hut!

We got into Carnegie before 2 pm greeted by an older bushy type who had minimal communication skills! We refuelled @ $2 dollars a litre (cash only) and got a shady campsite alongside our Swiss neighbour. A large hut is provided as camp kitchen except it only has power from 6 pm – 8:30 pm. It is a very small camp area and two convoys would be flat out fitting in. Besides, the old bloke wanted to lay some lino so they didn't want any travellers at the moment!

A band of hazy looking cloud in the West started to materialise into proper cloud around 4pm.

I cooked Fraser beef stew and rice in the kitchen but the power was very dodgy. We had a monster stick insect and millions of other insects and mosquitoes so that trying to have coffee and read back at the camper was nearly impossible. The showers were full of insects and small brown frogs having a feast on them.