The
Hickman Crater is considered a relatively "new" find. It's a meteorite impact crater, 16 kilometres northeast of the Hope Downs 4
Mine, which is just 35km north of
Newman in the
Ophthalmia Range, Western Australia.
The crater was actually discovered by a government geologist using Google Earth. in 2007. That geologist was Arthur Hickman.
According to
Australian Geographic, there are now 30 confirmed craters in Australia caused by impacts of comets, asteroids, and meteorites. As one of the oldest and least geologically disturbed continents, Australia has a rich record of meteorite craters. Of 176 confirmed impacts worldwide, our country bears the pockmarks of 30 – and about 20 others await confirmation.
During our travels, we have been to a few of these, including Henbury Craters, Wolfe Creek Crater, Gosse’s
Bluff Crater, Wolfe Creek Crater,
Dalgaranga Crater, Piccaninny, Veevers Crater, and now
Hickman Crater. However many of the sites are almost impossible to access or are deeply eroded and unimpressive to visit.
The most recent crater discovery in Australia was at
Ora Banda near Kalgoorlie revealing a 5km diameter crater which ranks as one of the worlds largest craters.
The
Hickman Crater is both impressive but unimpressive. Whilst it is one of the smallest craters at just 0.27km diameter, it features a raised, almost complete, circular crater rim.
Hickman Crater
Visitor Log Book at Hickman Crater
Drone view of Hickman Crater
To get to the site is very straightforward but you will need a high clearance 4WD and you'll need to go to the
BHP Railway Access website (or drop into
Newman visitors centre) to fill out an access permit to traverse the service line to get to the access track.
When first commencing the trip, you'll be driving on a dirt road immediately adjacent to the BHP Railway line heading north. You'll drive past a few signed sidings and then once you reach the 356 rail peg you'll come to the marked track to Punda Rockholes on your left. This very tightly, spinifex crowded track is 14km long and is very corrugated and slow going.
Punda Rockhole Turnoff
Punda Crossroads
Punda Petroglyphs Rock Art
Punda Rockhole Drive
Punda Rockhole Drive
Punda Petroglyphs Rock Art
View from top of rock art to carpark at Punda Petroglyphs
Punda Rockhole
Driving through creeks in Punda Rockhole
At 14km you will come to a 4 way
intersection. Straight ahead to the
aboriginal rock art site (Punda Petroglyphs) a superb site. Back to the 4 way
junction and you will need to head south to
Hickman Crater but this is a very long trip and officially you need to backtrack to
the junction and back out to the railway service line to exit the area.
I say officially, because there are alternative tracks and we drove out via the Repeater 8 track, which did not have any signage to indicate it was not permitted however at the other end signs state the track is closed to unauthorised vehicles and there is lots of drilling going on so you must go in/out via Punda
Crossroads. An upgrade to the track from the Punda
Crossroads is being planned to bring in drilling equipment. We spoke to the survey team who included 4 aboriginal trackers who were scouting for artefacts along the course of the widened track.
If you also include a visit to the north from the
crossroads to the
Punda Rockhole as we did, you're in a very very long day (although we wouldn't recommend this - we put in a lot of driving time but never found much of a
rockhole). We travelled 10.4km from the
crossroads and located the area but did not find any
waterhole, no decent camps, and is very slow driving through rocky creekbeds and overhanging trees. Petroglyphs and Crater sites however are worthwhile.
Here's our Track Log of this day trip.