Is it getting warmer?

Monday 20th May

A bit of top up shopping in Mukinbudin and then off for somewhere to stay tonight, it is a beautiful sunny day but we expect to be cold again tonight. We look at a gravel pit south of Beacon but it’s too near the road and rather small. The next option is Biliburning Rock about 40 ks further north!

On arriving we realise that we have been here before but this time we’ll camp in a different spot. We had a fire but it was too cloudy to see many satellites, we used up all our luck the other night!

It is a lovely bright morning and we’re in no real hurry.

Tuesday 21st May

We realised this morning after a quick walk round that we were the only people here overnight!

In the late 30s and early 40s huge areas of the south west of WA were cleared for farmland. The intention was good but the repercussions would turn out to be very serious. Most of the cleared land comprised small trees and low scrub. To do this, huge steel balls connected by massive chains were dragged across the land ripping out the trees and bushes. In Bencubbin there are replicas of this equipment.

https://youtu.be/IEXHm7sew3w I

Look at the first few minutes and you’ll see how thousands and thousands of square miles of bush was ripped out.

Sadly, the outcome of this clearance was the complete unbalancing of the environment.

Above; Sand drift caused by unwise clearing has buried this fence three times.

Above right; Wind erosion has removed about two feet of soil from this paddock. Stumps once at cleared level are now exposed.

After Bencubbin we head for Paynes Find up the Moroubra Road, a dirt road in pretty good condition, we’re looking for a camping spot that we found and named Big Tree because it contrasted with the rest of the surrounding area which has very small trees and low scrub. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a waypoint on the car navigator but we found it easily as it was living up to it’s name and our memory.

Wedneday 22nd May

We had planned to pick up some milk and stuff as weel as fuel at Paynes Find before taking the dirt road to Sandstone. However, there was nothing in the shop at Paynes Find, not unusual as everything has to come up from Perth by road and deliveries are not regular or reliable.

We decide to carry on up the Great Northern to Mt Magnet where we know there is a reasonably good IGA. They had obviously had some recent deliveries and the store was pretty well stocked, even had a couple of half decent bottles of plonk! From here we had to go on a sealed road from Mt Magnet to Leinster via Sandstone. There are very few stopping places along this road, mainly because of the nickel mine at Leinster and the fact that the ore is trucked outby road. So, there is a constant stream of roadtrains , trucks with 4 trailers, and you cannot get far enough off the road to avoid this constant flow of heavy truck noise.

We eventually found a place but it was very noisy until about 2230 and from then we weren’t actually disturbed during the night or, maybe we were just tired enough to sleep through it, cbut ertainly we didn’t hear anything ’til about 0600.

Thursday 23rd May

A really sunny morning welcomed us.

Got on the road about 0930 this morning and immediately had a nickel ore Road Train wanting to get round us. These guys are some 56.6 metres long and carry up to 175 tonnes of ore with a full load. They travel at abour 90ks which is a bit faster than we like to travel so we like to help them to get round us without slowing them down, as you can imagine it takes them a long while to get up to speed again.

So we have these guys wanting to come round us on a regular basis plus a couple of 4metre wide loads coming towards that we need to get out of the way of.

By the time we get to Sandstone we figure it’s time for a coffee. The old Post Office is now a coffee shop and actually has decaf.

It has a collection of memorabilia which is unfortunately?, mixed in with modern stuff but they have retained the old mail chutes.

After a very nice coffee we’re back on the road and in amongst the traffic.

For lunch we’re looking for a place called the The Peter Denny Lookout, which a is camping area on the edge of a quite impressive breakaway, where the landscape has collapsed to form cliffs.

Back on the road, we’re back on the radio talking to the truck drivers, letting them know that we will know that we will back off to make sure they can get round safely. This afternoon we have a road train behind us and then a tanker travelling at the same speed as us but he was holding three road trains up!

I let them know that when we got to a suitable stretch of road that I would back right off and see if we get them all round………………………………………..

……………………….Job done! The drivers are pretty grateful and usually thank and wish us safe travels. Today we had about 300ks of this to say nothing of 2 x 8.0 metre wide loads which we had to get right off the road out of the way of them!

By the time we get to Leinster we’ve had a full day and there are no good camping areas within a sensible distance, so having upload diesel and some shopping, we decide to stop on the camping area in town for $10. It’s quiet and has gas hot water showers. What more do you want?

Friday 24th May

We get away reasonably early this morning and head north for Wiluna up the Goldfields Hwy, we have a good run, plenty of ore trucks going south but none going north that overhaul us. There are a lot of long hilly sections on this road and they can’t maintain there speed.

We’ve been to Wiluna before, it is very much an aboriginal town although the community itself is a few ks out to the east. It is a great pity that we can’t get our collective act together and sort this issue out. The aboriginal elders in Canberra achieving absolutely nothing for their people (whilst maintaining their own lifestyles), it is a human tradgedy. We take a run out to the east to have another look at the community, from a distance!

Our destination today is a place called North Pool, we have been here before but this time we intend to try and camp in a different place. The road in has been graded and we see the grader at work, he advises us that the track is a bit rough going into the camping area but no real problem.

When we get there we have the place to ourselves, so we take out time picking a good spot and set up our camp for a few days.

The pool is about 100 metres long by about 20 wide, the water is fairly deep at the moment but very muddy from the recent rain.

We get ourselves settled in and Roger goes in search of firewood, of which there is very little, most of it is Sheoak which doesn’t burn particlarly well. We’ll look again tomorrow and forego a fire tonight.

Late in the afternoon another caravan turns up but that’s the last we see of them.

Saturday 25th May

They’re getting ready to go when we get up and leave soon after, leaving us on our own again.

Roger has quite a busy morning re-wiring the tyre pressure warning system, he’s trying the signal detector in a different position. In the afternoon, after a cup of tea and a read, he’s off looking for more wood, having to go a bit further afield he finds enough for a good fire.

We’re going to try and catch some yabbies but think the water is probably too cold for them. However, there are three in the net late in the afternoon so we’ll leave it overnight.

Went for a walk around the loop road (way in and out).

So, as the sun goes down the fire makes it warm enough to sit outside and we get down to our usual satellite spotting routine. A rising moon makes them a bit more difficult to spot but we do quite well and then – the Elon Musk string starts to appear from the north west, we count 17 this time.

Sunday 26th May

Checked the yabbie net this morning, surprise, surprise, a good haul for a starter tonight.

Re-baited the net the net this morning and will see if we can get some more to freeze for a starter on Wednesday.

Looked like a relatively lazy day but then the pull-out larder got stuck! Pat was relatively confident that she knew what the problem was but it resisted all attempts to shift it. We had to find a piece of fencing wire – found some eventually. The required movement to fix it was a bit like the old bra advert, “to lift and separate”!

Another fire tonite, several sightings but no Musk satellites tonight.

Monday 27th May

We decided to leave here this morning and head for Meekatharra, for fuel and water, maybe even the Weekend Australian!

The Wiluna to Meekatharra road is mostly dirt but generally in pretty good condition and we make good time. Then at about 30ks out of Wiluna a water bowser has been used to wet the road for absolutely no reason whatsoever, there are no roadworks here so there was no need to keep the dust down. Of course, all that happens is that the caravan and the sides of the car get covered in red mud! When it dries it’s so difficult to get off.

Fortunately when we went to empty the cassette at Meekatharra no-one else was using the water hose so we spent nearly an hour getting the worst of the now pretty hardened red mud off!

Having refuelled and got the paper, we headed up the GN Hwy to Karalundi where we plan to stop for a couple of days so Pat can do a bit of washing and a general clear up.