Howdy,
I was to meet up with a friend at
Newman last Friday at 6:30pm and was running a bit early coming in from the south (Great Northern Highway) so looked for some alternative route to take up a bit of time. Although I had Natmaps moving map loaded with its usual myriad of tracks, I also had Hema's Road and 4WD atlas (Paper form).
It showed a minor unsealed road to Praire Downs, then a 4WD only track to the western side of
Ophthalmia Range, and then another minor unsealed road following parrallel to the south of the range to just north of
Newman. So on paper looked easy enough.
The track to Praire Downs was a fairly easy run, though as a main track to a station was a bit unmaintained. North from there was a bit tricky straight away. I got to Tuperdunya Spring Ok but spent a good ten minutes trying to find the track north.
After finding the track it was quite rough with the occasional dry
creek crossing to contend with. (This enabled me to give the new
suspension and shocks a bit of a
test, but that is another story). No-one had driven the track in a long while.
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At joining the east track at
Giles Point the track was quite good for a few kilometres to the east as I think the aerodrome nearby may have been in use or there was some mining exploration nearby. However after that the track became over grown and had many grass seeds growing up in the centre.
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I was not really prepared for this, and had absolutely no protection for the radiator, as this trip I was just going for "a drive etc." and had to give it a good clean later on.
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South of
Mount Newman there was quite literally a whole plain of this grass and it was quite spectacular to look at.
I am quite surprised that this track is not used considering the amount of mining in the area. I eventually came out on the Great Northern Highway about 4 kilometres north of
Mount Whaleback Mine, and managed to meet up with my friend with some minutes to spare.
Cheers
Alan, from
Overlander Roadhouse..