On our departure day out of
Newman we went to the
Visitors Centre and I enquired about access and
camping at Kalgan Pool. Yep, no worries BUT you need a permit. A what?? Yep, a permit from BHP Billiton to cross their railway line. Cheeez!. And it had mobs of access conditions written in as
well.
The drive in was very scenic as the road wound its way deeper into the hilly country. Unfortunately it was the start of WA School Holidays and the place was packed out. The whole area was a
pebbly beach and not really good for
camping. But we had lunch there. That was after I had gone back to give my mate the trolley jack after yet another puncture! On the way back my mate decided to take a short-cut track back to the main road and got the diff hung up on a rock. After lots of advice and laughing, he managed to extricate the GU from its predicament.
Back on the road to
Nullagine and I saw a Landcruiser ute approaching at speed. I slowed down to walking pace and moved on to the left hand windrow but this truck still came barrelling down on us, I flashed my lights but there was no recognition. A rock the size of my fist hit our windscreen and bleep tered the left hand side of it. Thank goodness for laminated glass. The
cook got a helluva fright. I cursed the bastard over the airwaves. It wasn't a tourist nor a mining vehicle. It looked more like a station vehicle with a
young fella behind the wheel. Anyway, lots of silicon later and a cuppa to steady our anger, we were once again proceeding north. We camped at a way side stop near
Roy Hill and it was quiet except for the odd ore truck billowing dust as they passed by. As we moved further north more of the creeks had
water in them and some were running.
Nullagine was an interesting little town with many rich gold mining prospects in the surrounding area. The lady at the roadhouse talked and talked and gave us more information than we needed. I asked after EO Member Davoe but she couldn’t place him amongst the 50 or so Davoe’s who roam the area. We did a quick drive around town and up on to the
lookout for a view. Then it was on to
Marble Bar and a sleepless night in the caravan
park. It was full moon and the bloody Butcherbird somehow didn’t know that. So a 2am he started his melodious repetitive calling and a mate answered down the road. They carried on like that till 7am and then flew off to annoy other beings somewhere else. At the fabled hottest place in Australia it was 1 degree at 7am!!! No hot
water in the shower either (run out of gas) and for a powered site at $25 a night it is not good enough. I hate caravan parks! We enjoyed the scenery around
Marble Bar and drove out to the famous Jasper rocks, visited the
mine and followed most tracks in close proximity to the place. We have marked this one down for another visit in the future, maybe with a gold detector under the arm.
We followed the Rippon Hills Road east, and bitumen all the way, to where it turns off to
Carawine Gorge and then a
well-formed track in until we got to
the gorge on the
Oakover River. Then it was into 4x4 mode to get down to the waters edge across the pebbled sand riverbank. We found a
good campsite, winched a few dead logs on to the fire and sat around doing basically nothing for four days. Shortly after we arrived Jeddah, our dog, flushed an
Echidna out from under a bush. Now the dog has been trained not harass little animals and was just following the
Echidna out of curiosity. We took many photos of the little fella and then left him/her to wander off. Being so close to
water I got it in to my head to wash
the desert dust off the truck. I should have saved myself the trouble, as it was twice as dirty by the time we got home. Some of the plugged tyres were leaking air and required more plugs. My mate discovered that his main battery was on the way out and we stuffed around with wires, multi meters and argued the point about batteries. He had to be jumpstarted a couple of times. A few other campers came in and went out again. All in all we had a relaxed, peaceful time there, with the cooks excelling themselves on the good coal we managed to make, burning some seasoned logs. The colours of
the gorge are fantastic and the cliffs change as the sun progresses during the day. The fish were jumping but we had no gear for fishing and so we left them to the Fish-eagle who came in for daily visits.
Cheers