Let's Go Geo-Touring

with SHANE THE SHARKCAVER

Trimming the Hedgerow

Alittle gem not often explored is found right on our doorstep. The Wheatbelt has many hidden places to investigate and what’s more, it has geocaches aplenty. It is one of my favourite places to visit and provides a nice gateway to the Greater Western Woodlands and the Western Goldfields should one wish to push on further. It’s a win - win location. The cooler parts of the year are the preferred time to visit, but having a week of leave to consume, I decided to push ahead with this trip in October. With my usual travelling companions unavailable, I hit the highway for a week long solo journey; to find some new caches, explore a rock or two and revisit some places I had not been to in almost decade. First port of call was to be Billiburning Rock, a place John Forrest stopped at in 1869 on his journey to find the remains of the missing explorer Leichhardt. Taking a different route to usual, I ventured via Wongan Hills and came across a large body of water, Lake Ninan. It was a windless day, perfect for putting the drone up for a quick fly. Arriving at Billiburning an hour before sundown was perfect. It had been a warm day and I only had to put up with the flies for an hour or so before they went to bed for the evening. The wind had come up from the east during the night and was quite strong, bending one of the support arms for my awning in the process, which made it a chore to pack away in the morning. After a walk up to the cairn on top of the rock and re-finding a cache I had found some time ago, I hit the road for Mukinbudin, destination unknown. I made my way to Datjoin Well as there was a cache here I hadn’t found before. The easterly had made the day very hot and the flies became troublesome. I spent some considerable time clambering over and through some granite outcrop looking for this cache, and after about an hour, I was rewarded with a find.

Camp 1 at Billiburning Rock.

The cache at Datjoin Well, finally found.

A couple more caches were found beside the road on the way to Mukka, where I refuelled and then spent another hour trying to find a cache just out of town. This time I was unsuccessful. So I headed for an early camp to an old favourite, Beringbooding Rock. With a couple of hours up my sleeve, it was time to grab some aerial photographs of the rock and chill for the afternoon with a relaxing ale. In the morning, I took a couple that were camped nearby to the Aboriginal handprint in a cave on the eastern side of the rock. It’s not easy to spot, but once you know where it is, it gets easier finding it again. My plan that day was to attempt to find a cache I had failed to grab on a prior trip. This involved some considerable walking to get to and scaling a sheer granite boulder with a rope. The site has some spectacular indigenous artwork in a cave that most would never know about had one not been into geocaching. Unfortunately, the temperature was already in the high 30s by the time I had left camp, so I put this plan on the backburner to wait for cooler weather. All was not lost though, as a another rock nearby also had a cache that I hadn’t attempted before, so I gave this a go as my plan B. Arriving at the rock, I found it was a mighty structure and the task at hand looked difficult to say the least. Battling the flies, the heat and the terrain, I got to within 20m of the cache. I was presented with a long undercut ledge below a sheer

Water storage tank at Beringbooding Rock.

face of granite above. Thinking it must be in a hole at the back of this ledge, I crawled in on my back, investigating every nook and cranny deep at the back. Whilst I did find a small pool of permanent water, I found no cache, but I was now covered in bird and roo poo and granite dust. Definitely not a pleasant experience having all this glued to one's sweat. I came to the conclusion that it must be above at the top of that sheer wall, so I found a way to make my way up higher. Finding some nice cave systems, I concluded that it had to be higher again. But now I was too hot, too dirty and too smelly to continue. Did I mention the flies? This one also will go into the too hard basket - for now. So caching wise, it hadn’t been a good start to the day. After heading out to Elachbutting Rock for a look, I hit the gravel road for the vermin proof fence. Through the gate and after navigating some easy bush tracks,

Eagle Rock Dam. I had arrived at my special little place by early afternoon. It was very hot now, and I was still covered in roo poo. I found the dam had water in it. The fact that it was full of cattle wee was irrelevant - I was going in and the roo poo was coming off. I spent the afternoon lazily chasing shade and washing the dust from a parched throat. Some emus came by, no doubt looking for a drink. I sat quietly in the shade watching their antics. They were a bit wary of me, edging ever closer. So I just sat quietly so they could do their thing.

Jourdine rock: a cache left for another day.

Eventually they made their way down to the water, just out of eyeshot in the shrubbery and replenished their need for water. As the sun went down, the birds came in for a drink and so too did the cattle. All of them very disappointed some old bugger had decided to commandeer their little patch of paradise. After sundown, with a nice little camp fire going, I felt like I was in paradise too, now cleaned of poo and granite dust. In the morning I made my way back to the vermin proof fence. The plan was to make my way to the Helena and Aurora ranges via Mt Jackson and a little-known abandoned homestead. I had hoped to take the fence road to the Mt Jackson road, but was thwarted in my tracks by a no entry sign. Now I had a decision to make. I could go to the north of Lake Deborah to the Mt Jackson road but this would be a long detour, or I could try my luck via an unnamed track which I travelled last time I was here. The problem being, this track was well overgrown back then. Against my better judgement, I opted for the latter. All was well for a few kilometres, only occasionally dropping firewood into my roof top basket. But the further I went, the worse it got. It hadn’t changed in all those years. Soon enough it was like I had remembered. Side to side hedgerows of scratchy acacia bushes. You picked your line by achieving an equal amount of squeal from the paintwork on both sides. Too much noise on one side, move a little to the other to get the noise, akin to fingernails on a blackboard, equal. A couple of hours in I came to a dead end. I remembered from my prior trip we had issues with finding the track in one spot. I spent a good hour and a half walking around trying to work out where this track was. The flies and temperature were not helping. Then I had a brainstorm ... I may have kept my old tracklog on a tablet in the car. With Ozi fired up and the tracklog loaded, I zoomed in to maximum and followed the old tracklog. This took me up and over a granite outcrop and into the bushes on the other side. A hundred metres or so into this scrub the track became evident again. There is no way I would have found this track on foot. Interspersed with these hedgerows of acacia was some open woodland which gave you a small reprieve from what was about to come.

Bush chooks ascend the rock. A nice piece of track between sections of hedgerow.

I made the junction of a fence line track I remembered from last time and knew my immediate destination was near. I also knew the conditions would get worse - if that was at all possible. After some 4.5 hours and 37km I finally made the abandoned Kuykara Homestead and was surprised to see that age had been kind to her. It looked to be in the same condition as it was when I first visited. From here on, I knew the track conditions would be okay. The poor old Paj had suffered a beating. On the Mt Jackson road, I found the Mt Jackson Homestead in a terrible state since I had been here last. Every time I visit, I can see the decline in the old girl. I fear there will not be many seasons left before she turns to rubble.

Kuykara Homestead. Mt Jackson Homestead.

The granite outcrop.

Before leaving, I had another attempt at finding the cache here, something I’ve tried to do a few times without success. I eventually found the cache on the ground, out in the open, blown out of its home in the stone wall. I signed the log, found a new home in the wall for it and left for the Helena and Aurora’s, happy that I now had the Mt Jackson cache under my belt. I had to make a hasty camp about 10km shy of the Helena’s as the sun went down. It had been a long, hard day and I didn’t hang around long after dinner before retiring for the evening. The next morning I made my way around to the south eastern side of the range. The gnarly track to the summit from this side was now closed. On the way out, there was a cache a short distance away, so I detoured to pick it off. The site has an abandoned old humpy but I can find no history about it. Perhaps occupied by a sandlewood cutter or a miner, I do not know. Again, another cache was found exposed on the ground which I replaced back into position after signing the log. I then made my way to the north west side of the range and ascended the summit.

An old shack, the site of another out-of-the-way geocache.

The view up here is nothing short of spectacular, some 400m above the surrounding flat woodland below. I checked on a cache here that I had found on a prior trip and all was in good order. Being midday, with a long way to go, I needed to push on. With no caches to find for the next couple of days, I could relax and just enjoy the scenery. The country changed to classic greater western woodland and the tracks through here were easy to navigate apart from the occasional washout. The base changed constantly from red to yellow sand, some sections slightly soft, but nothing bothersome. Stopping at Pittosporum Rocks, I was surprised to see a little water still available, a lifeline for the birds, roos and emus in the

Camped up short of the Helena’s.

region. Here I had a pie for lunch that I had put into the oven on the summit of the Helena’s, fighting the flies for my share of the prize. Over the Hunt Range, which you would miss if you blink, you end up at a large granite formation called Kurrajong Rocks. Having some prior knowledge or a good GPS application here helps as the tracks are a bit harder to find. My plan was to turn south for one of my regular haunts, Jaurdi Station. It’s a pleasurable couple of hour's drive through the woodlands to the station. Some fires had been through recently and required many diversions around fallen trees. My three days of isolation from others had come to an end. A family arrived at the station just before I did to spend the weekend here. They moved off to the shed and left me at the homestead to enjoy a beer by myself around the campfire. The next morning the weather had changed. The hot days were gone and rain looked imminent. I headed down to the blacktop after three days of dirt and made my way to Mt Palmer, edging closer to home. There is a cache to the east of the Mt Palmer track that I decided against attempting, owing to having to drive across a salt lake to get there. Salt lakes and rain are not a good mix. Better to live another day, especially when one is solo. All was not lost though as there is a cache at the Mt Palmer site. Unfortunately, it was another one I couldn’t find again, as I arrived just before sundown and had a million bricks to sort through.

The large Pittosporum tree. Camped at Jaurdi Homestead.

I had made plans to meet a mate for lunch at the Brookton Hotel the next day. Where else but in WA would you travel 350km for a beer? So I had some distance to do, all on the blacktop. Over lunch we discussed some ideas for the night’s camp and did a little bit of exploring on the way to a relatively new DBCA campground at the Dryandra Woodlands. DBCA have done a great job so far, the campgrounds being quite large and spread out. A nice night was had with some company for a change by yet another campfire. In the morning, we made pancakes in the new camp kitchen, before finding the cache here, located a short walk away. As all good things must come to an end, I had to return home. It had been an enjoyable eight days and 1800km of solo geo-touring completed in a region I dearly love. Once home, it was time to break out the polish, such is the case when one trims the hedgerow.

The remains of the Mt Palmer hotel. The Gnaala Mia cache.