Trish Travels: The Second Trip

After a few false starts (3 complete reopenings and 5 hours ) to fix a water leak! We were off, just a short trip to spend the evening with birthday boy Chris and Melissa.

Sunday 20th May - Perth to Dalgaranga Crater

An early start at 5:30 for a rendezvous-vous with Michael at Gingers Roadhouse by 6:15. Next stop New Norcia. Pulling up near the hotel for breakfast, we noticed a few beautiful old jags so we went to investigate, (read drool). Turns out it was the Jaguar Car Club, they had stayed overnight on the way to the Gin Gin Classic Car Show. One poor chappy came out to find his XK150 had a flat tyre. Once he got the spare on ( with a not so pretty chrome wire rim, only painted) he discovered it only had 7 psi, but a few people were very impressed when chauffeur ran over to bring Maxxie closer and promptly got out the compressor hose. I heard a comment about how lucky a recovery vehicle should be so close by! On to Mt Magnet with a quick lunch stop at Paynes Find, where they did have fuel in their generators this time :). We were flagging by the time e his Mt Magnet for a refuel - Michael also needing to refuel with as Magnum. First camp at Dalgoranga Meteor Crater. This is Wa's smallest, only 5 meters deep, but it would have given the stockman who first discovered it a shock when he nearly rode into it at full gallop!

Monday 21st May - Crater to Bilyuin Pool

Lovely relaxed breakfast, this is the life, we are all happy at being off the Tarmac and in the bush again. Headed off to find Walga Rock. Bigger than we expected with lots of aboriginal paintings. The views from the top were up to the usual standard, and sitting down to absorb the beauty we discovered the thousands of goat poos were very hard and bounced down the rock quite well - I won in the "who can roll them down the furtherest" :). We were even more surprised at the next stop. Thought Big Bell would just be a couple of historical plaques. In 1954 there was a population of 850. The hotel (minus a roof) was huge but they weren't serving so we had to make our own lunch! Through Meekatharra and on to the night's campsite at Bilyiun Pool. Last time we stopped here, for lunch, the site was full of rubbish, so were pleasantly surprised to find it clean (2 bins provided and they weren't overflowing!) enough wood around so we enjoyed dinner around a fire. It cooled down pretty quick. Bilyiun is part of the Murchison River and there was plenty of water. My guess that that meant there would be plenty of birds around, therefore, a loud dawn chorus was correct!

Day 4 Tuesday 22nd May - Bilyiun Pool to Table Mountain

Leaving Bilyuin Pool and heading north up the Ashburton Downs Road. Hoping to get all the way up this road, but it is over 500kms. Started out ok, but soon hit the washouts. It would seem no sooner than you get into 4th gear than you have to slow down, read really slow down. These washouts seem to have a second very concealed mini rut. After a couple of very large dip-a-dee-doos, when I thought to myself, oh there go the eggs, Chauffeur had to slow right down. Despite this the Views were spectacular. I think Michael might be sprouting wings, he has mentioned several times he has become airborne :) Extremely varied vegetation, lots of flowers, many Mulla Mulla's. It is all the catchment, channel area of the Gascoigne and Ashburton rivers. Only passed one vehicle who stopped for a chat. Interesting road sign "Bulls live for heifer, if you hit one you might not!" Stopped for lunch under a shady tree beside a large dry creek bed. A well nearby with an overflowing water tank, so we all made use of "free" fresh water, Michael even filling his solar bag. How to then safely carry it over this rough terrain proved a bit challenging but adjustment 3 got it sorted. By 3:00, with another 200km to go we realised we didn't want to push on much further. By this time the landscape had changed yet again, rather flat and barren, so decided if we hadn't found a pretty camp spot by 4:00pm at the latest we would just pull off anyway. Off to the right we spied 2 flat topped hills (table mountain) and snuggled in at the base. It turned out the perfect setting for sunset and with the wood Michael had collected on route - that which hadn't been white anted - we had a great fire. Thinking about the bull sign I had seen earlier got me to thinking about burning cow pats (there was one closeby). I was surprised at the "grossed out" reaction from the boys when I kicked it on the fire. However, we were all impressed by its burning capacity, but they weren't too keen when I suggested I could cook something for them over it! What is wrong with them?