Category: Western Australia

Out of range at Helena Aurora

8/5/2018

It must have been more than ten years since I have been here. Back then it was to photograph a couple protesting the planned destruction and removal to an ore crusher of this spectacular and unique range of hills a couple of hours north of Southern Cross.

This time I’m back, finally, to have a closer look at the Helena Aurora Ranges which have, again, escaped the bulldozer and dynamite after a late 2017 Government decision not to grant a mining permit in this Conservation Area.

I won’t dwell on the politics other than to say there are moves to make the area into a National Park not just because of the sheer, rugged beauty of the cliffs and gullies which rise out of the sand plains and woodlands, but because they are home to species of flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world.

This is not a place for the faint of heart or limb. I was following my mate, Geo Bob, or I may well have got lost in the myriad of tracks, trails, diversions and dead ends around the base of the range. It is a fair way from anywhere and rarely visited - we saw no one at all on the three days of our stay - although there was weak mobile signal at the top of the Bungalbin Hill, you really do not want to ‘come unstuck’ out there. Water, hat, tough boots are essential.

A 4WD, too, is highly recommended if you want to get the most out of the trip. Once you leave the bitumen the road, reliable at first, is prone to sporadic potholes and gullies which will defeat low-clearance cars. You might get to the bring-your-own-everything, quiet, level camping area at the base of the ranges in a 2 WD - but you certainly will not get to the top where the most spectacular views and rough walk trails await.

On the lightly-tree’d summit we clambered around outcrops, discovering caves and stunning views, finding signs of past mining explorations. Geo Bob points out a tetratheca plant - the small purple flowers on the spike-like stems appearing to grow straight out of the rock. This is the small plant which almost single-handedly defeated the first attempt to mine the ranges. You will find it nowhere else. From this sentinel rock we survey the scenes below: a rain squall approaching from the West, the clouds allowing a solitary pool of sunlight to fall on the Woodlands below and, next day, the clear skies, haze and distant hills hunkered down on the horizon. All the time we are under the gaze of a wheeling, proprietorial eagle.

I’m not sure if we even scratched the surface of what could be discovered in these ranges in the couple of days we were there - there are tales of rock art and sacred sites - but for the solitude, the views and the experience of treading (carefully) in such a unique, timeless place the journey was well worthwhile. An understated gem in WA’s jewel-encrusted crown!

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Kookynie , WA - a roundabout tale of a one-horse town...

7/22/2018

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I’m resisting the temptation to make some observation about Kookynie being a ‘one horse town’ (it is) only because it has a roundabout. Down the road, Kalgoorlie, with a population nearly 3000 times that of Kookynie boasts a few roundabouts, too, (and several horses) so roundabouts are understandable. In Kookynie (population twelve souls and one horse) it is baffling - and it’s very tempting to negotiate it the wrong way round… just because…

We arrived in Kookynie on a still, cool evening disturbed only by the wheeling of a wedge-tailed eagle and the last flittings of the day of numerous little birds in the mulga scrub. Our late arrival, due solely to a mesmerising linger on the red, rocky shores of the still waters of Niagara Dam ten minutes down the road, coincided with that of a train. No - it’s not what you think. Only ore and supply trains break their long rumbling roll at Kookynie and then only to change drivers. Trains bringing passengers to Kookynie finished a long time ago, when gold extraction and processing costs rose along with subterranean water tables in a classic case of Sod’s Law: in a region forever dogged by scarcity of water, Kookynie’s mines were eventually overwhelmed by it.

Kookynie is on the Golden Quest Trail, which is now also the back road to Laverton. It was not always so. A little over 100 years ago, Kookynie sprang from prospectors’ camp to a 400-building town in record time. At its peak, the town sported a racecourse, swimming pool, numerous hotels, two newspapers and a brewery. There were several churches, general stores, banks, a hospital, school and a few ‘red light houses.’ Of course, it was gold which had drawn the population of nearly 2500 population to the place. And it was the lack of gold which emptied it in a scenario so often repeated in the goldfields.

A swift dusk tour of the townsite revealed ruins of classic cars and buildings speckled over the flat, tussocky ground. Faintly illogical in the scene of abandonment is a row of well preserved shop fronts - empty and closed, but ready for … well, something to happen.

We stayed at the Grand Hotel, the last hotel standing in the town. Eighteen foot ceilings, long passageways, an intimate bar and dining room, a beautifully relaxed, outback welcome from owners Kevin and Margaret and one of the best steaks ever; the evening there was delightful. But it was in the early morning light the next day when Kookynie really revealed its quirkiness to me.

The clatter and drub of a cantering horse swept out of the silence of the dawn. As I stood in the road by the pit and bricks of the National Hotel, once deemed the finest building north of Kalgoorlie, I could see nothing against the glare of the rising sun from where the hoof beats were approaching. I had met Willie the Horse the previous night when we spied him being given a bedtime cuddle and a blanket outside the hotel shortly before we were forced to negotiate with ( that is, move) his large bottom blocking the doorway to the hotel so we could get in. I was in little doubt that I was now about to meet the other end of Willie, a former trotter although obviously quite capable of cantering.

I did meet Willie but it was, of course, on his terms. I could almost detect a cartoon brake-squeal as the cantering stopped as suddenly as it started - Willie had realised I was not Kevin. His interest and enthusiasm vanished as did my anticipation of a Lawrence of Arabia moment: witnessing a horse emerge from the impenetrable brightness. Instead it was up to me to go to Willie, who allowed me, briefly, to scratch his forehead before he nonchalantly surveyed his domain and got back to doing what horses do best, eating.

It was intriguing wandering around the area. I did not have to look far to see the signs of big industry long gone: enormous tanks and spoil mounds hiding dilapidated cottages. Significant ruins marked by plaques tell modest tales of the buildings, long dismantled and dispersed for use elsewhere, in true goldfields tradition.

By the pit and bricks of the National Hotel, opposite the shop fronts, a plaque, complete with photograph of the Hotel in its vast grandeur (think a one storey version of the Esplanade Hotel, Fremantle) quotes Queenie Fogerty (née Lynch) recollecting a “dray and horses bringing loads of beer barrels and unloading” and how her “trusty three-wheel trike carried me as far afield as I ever went, on my own anyway.”

We climb aboard our four wheels and swing out of town toward the breakaways to the north and Malcolm and Laverton beyond. Willie is still eating, looking up as we pass him, not to look at us, of course, but to survey his estate. It’s a wonderful, unusual outcome for a once great town, really: a horse now rules it, visits its pub, treats its visitors with barely concealed disdain. And why not? After all, the gold rush is well and truly over in Kookynie.

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Shark Bay, WA

7/15/2018

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The challenge: Exams over for one child, who now need not attend school, a mood for something different, an escape, a small adventure. All on a budget, of course….

The solution: a few camping supplies chucked in - and on - the car and an easy trip north to Shark Bay leaving behind a mother perplexed at the ease and speed of departure with nothing booked ahead, and some siblings grumpy that their school routine had to continue.

The result: Absolute beach front accommodation, no booking required, guaranteed unique sights and views in an unspoiled, private peaceful part of classic Australian outback… three people, $60…what a deal!

An early evening arrival in Shark Bay , an overnighter at the Monkey Mia Resort campground and the next morning (after the obligatory dolphin experience) we were deflating our tyres by the old homestead in Francois Peron National Park, having paid our entrance and overnighting fees at the honesty box at the Park entrance.

Travelling around the Park is not hard but you do need a 4WD and you do need to let your tyres down if you hope to negotiate the soft sands and pindan dirt of the tracks without resorting to jacks and shovels. Experience driving in these conditions is undoubtedly useful.

We had chosen Herald Bight, on the eastern coast of the peninsular, as our destination. The eastern shore is gentle: sheltered from prevailing winds and ocean, dunes and red pindan cliffs flow down to a mill pond sea, shallow and peaceful. While the peninsular’s west coast offers several camping areas and fishing spots, Herald Bight is the only camping area on the eastern shore. It stretches for well over a curved kilometre of soft sand and affords the visitor absolute beach front camping and that unusual phenomenon in Western Australia, a view of a sunrise over sea.

The track from the homestead rolls and winds its way through scrub and around salt pans, at times stretching straight to the shimmering horizon, as every classic Australian outback should. At other times it forces you to creep around sharp corners in case one of several tours operating in the Park is coming the other way.

There are signs of animal life everywhere : along the banks of the track a myriad of prints and patterns left by emus and large and small reptiles and mammals have pocked the sand. Large lizards scuttle out of the way of oncoming vehicles and warning signs tell us to watch out for bilbies, the endangered marsupial now thriving in the Park since the fox and cat population was brought under control. Being nocturnal, bilbies are rarely spotted by day.

The Bight reveals itself as a sudden sweep of placid blue water as we crest a black sand dune 45 kms from the homestead. Soon after, we are setting up camp in a recess in the gentle dunes, a few hundred metres north of the access point. The only people on the beach. Not a sign of humans except an unattended boat trailer and its cargo moored out on the lake-like water. Bizarrely, there is strong mobile phone reception.

The next few days were spent exploring the shoreline by kayak and foot after spectacular dawn starts. Some scuttlings in the dunes at night, the occasional dolphin fin out at sea and the constant company of a mob of watchful seabirds were wonderful interruptions to our day. We pottered out each day to explore our surrounds: the white of the barnacle-covered rocks set against the red cliffs at Cape Peron (the northern tip of the peninsular) were stunning, our visit there made particularly memorable by the sight of a shark swimming close to shore as we walked along the rocky beach. The signs say “Swimming Not Recommended”….

The lighthouse at the Skipjack Point was well worth the visit. From there a stunning view south east over red dunes to clear turquoise waters in a sheltered bay revealed large rays and shoals of fish making their way over the rippled sands of the sea bed. We saw a large kangaroo bound effortlessly down a steep dune toward the sea - and a feral cat making its way more cautiously up the red dune towering over the bay.

Another visit to Big Lagoon, on the western side, was rewarding, too. An easy climb up dunes revealed the size of the lagoon, the vivid colours of its surrounding dunes and flora, its shifting currents, the ocean gently rolling at its entrance. Our big regret there was not bringing the kayak to explore the shores of this spectacular place.

Back on the road again well before we would have liked to, we happily delayed our leaving the World Heritage Area with visits to the the gleamingly pristine Shell Beach and the stromatolites at Hamelin Pool.

Measuring a good break by the detail and number of memorable moments, places Shark Bay beyond excellent. As a getaway destination, superb. Beach front accommodation, unparalleled. And the budget? I’ll be there longer next time….

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Under the Gimlet Tree

7/1/2018

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Summer 1922/23: Police discover 22 year-old sandalwood cutter George Harrod under his spring cart after he fails to return to Bullfinch, near Southern Cross for Christmas. Harrod has one boot missing, is lying face down and is dead. He is presumed to have been killed by a snakebite.

April 2018: I am with a friend (I’ll call him Geo Bob) who knows this region well. We have located a rude trail which winds its way through the glades and gimlets of this part of the Great Western Woodlands, to a long-disused airstrip. The strip, once used to bring mining exploration teams in to the area, 100 kms north of Southern Cross, is now only recognisable thanks to the occasional tyre which might have once edged the runway and a small set of star pickets marking where the windsock might once have stood. Otherwise the area could be another glade, large but only remarkable for the expanse of sparsity of tall trees.

A small spinney of young spiralled-trunked gimlets lies a little distance from the old runway, close to a scattering of ancient tin cans, the only signs of camps of sandalwood cutters and prospectors who first ventured out here. A rusting frame and springs of a cart lies in the shade of this whispering stand of trees. A horse’s head collar is attached to it.

This, we suspect, could be the last resting place of George Harrod.

We had heard of the story of a man found dead along with his horse still tied to a cart or a tree but did not come here specifically to locate the cart, nor to search for the gun which, one story relates, was leant against a tree which ‘subsumed’ it, carrying it high up its trunk over the near- 100 years since Harrod’s demise. Although we did search for it, craning our necks to stare high into polished branches, to discern the faintest gun-like ripple among the boles and whorls of the trunks, and although we ran a metal detector around the hard-decaying, bleached skeletons of trees long fallen, we found nothing but the occasional nail or a rusting bully beef tin.

Harrod’s tale is just one of so many about men and women who, in the early years of exploration, ventured out, became ‘unstuck’ and perished to be subsumed, like Harrod’s gun in these woods.
It’s even bizarre now, standing in the shade of one of the massive eucalypts, to think there was once a busy airstrip here with all the smells, sounds and detritus which accompanies it; that once men - and maybe women - sat around here planning digs and chucking empty cans into the scrub; that maybe the woods rang to the sound of the sandalwood cutters’ axes and saws. Or that a man died a painful death in such an inoffensive, tranquil place

Lance Stevens of the Yilgarn History Museum is not so certain that our cart is related to Harrod’s death. He points out:

Police would have gathered all property belonging to the dead man, that carts were abandoned if a wheel broke or the horse went lame and that the Old Coolgardie Track in the early years was littered with equipment and carts 'which never made it.'

All fair points and maybe academic now that, except for the occasional flit and twitter of small birds in the scrub, or the rustle of the leaves in the light breeze, there is the distinct impression that these Woodlands have shrugged away the incursions of mankind and are peacefully carrying on the way they were tens of thousands of years before Harrod or any other European made his ill-fated journey out here.

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On the Quest for Gold

5/27/2018

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“It changes you,” says Marty Pereira. “It changes your eyes when you find gold.”

Having prospected as a past time for many years, Marty was often asked to teach prospecting skills. Now he operates a self-contained ecological, transportable camp set up among the tall, bronze-trunked gimlet trees on his lease in the Great Western Woodlands. The directions are classic ‘bush directions’ involving gateways at unnamed waypoints and following tracks defined by the most recent tyre marks rather than wide avenues. Nevertheless, we twist and turn our way through the magnificent, glowing trees and arrive at an almost deserted camp: a number of tents, a couple of portable gazebos, a huge caravan, campfire and a colourful bus displaying the name of Marty’s Golden Nugget Tour company.

Marty is the only one there. He shows us our tents, in which each has a stretcher and decent mattress. We are supplied, like all his guests, with a brand new sleeping bag to keep. A small torch and an external lantern are there for our use, too.

Marty chucks some leaves on the fire in the ‘Bull Pit’ (named “because so much bull is talked there” he says) and soon the flames are crackling away on some logs.

As the evening creeps in and the bronzed trunks glitter in the last rays of the day, Marty’s guests drift into camp, unsaddling their metal detectors, slotting the batteries into the huge charging bank Marty has set up in the back of his caravan. Some walk in, some chug in in their utes or 4WD. Guests are fed and accommodated for the duration of their stay at Marty’s camp. They can prospect where they like on the lease and sometimes wander, legally, further afield with Marty guiding them. Guests get to keep whatever gold they find. Our new companions consist of three farmer friends from the Great Southern, a New South Welshman and a couple from Mandurah.

Two camp ovens are swung into action: one is filled with beef and vegetables, the other has a nonchalant mix of flour, yeast and water mixed and kneaded (plus another secret ingredient) in it. Both ovens end up on the embers of the fire.

As the darkness gathers, more cars turn up. Marty’s camp has become the site for quite the corroboree: there’s a couple who host a gold prospecting TV programme, a neighbouring leaseholder, another New South Welshman who comes to the Goldfields every winter for some prospecting. He shows me a nugget he found “Oh.. about one and a half kilometres that way.” A vague wave of the hand is the best direction I’m going to get. With gold prospecting, I soon learn, it was ever thus…

All the talk under the gibbous moon is of gold, tales of gold, prospectors, the bad things that can happen if you stray off lease. The single, repetitive mantra is “Dig every target”. The TV hosts reckon you should dig 150 targets each day for reasonable chance of success. The gold can come in tiny flakes or large nuggets. Previous treasures are displayed: ‘good looking’ nuggets which have been eroded by slow travel through the soil can be worth three times there weight if suitable for jewellery.
All the time Marty is tending to the ovens, occasionally shovelling embers around the bases or onto the lids to cook the contents just right.

The damper and beef stew are served - and I’ve got to tell you, it was very, very good: soft bread, meat which fell off the bones and all with a subtle smoky flavour perfectly matched to the setting.
Several of his guests attest to the high standard of Marty’s campfire cooking skills, remarking on the delight of a Peri Peri chicken he had concocted previously.

Cars drift away into the night, numbers dwindle: it will be an early start the next day.

“The rule is first one up gets the fire going again” is Marty’s good night greeting. “It’ll be cold in the morning.”

He is, of course, absolutely right. There’s a distinct chill which urgent cups of tea and coffee alleviate in front of the reinvigorated flames.

While the other guests saddle up and drive out for another day of optimism, Marty arms us beginners with his high-end metal detectors, shows us how to set them up, tune them in and swing them from the hips, keeping the flat disc close and level to the ground. How to sift and eliminate targets which are not gold, how to zero in on the elusive flecks. We carry small picks with magnets in the butt of the handle to pick up and discard the huge amount of iron and metal that has been dispersed over the ground. Gold, being non-magnetic will be left behind by the magnet to trigger again the detector’s demanding shriek…

Tiny fragments of tin, dustings of iron filings, much scratching and scraping, sweeping of magnet and then, then the time the detector keeps yelling after the magnet has done its work. It’s in a shoe-box sized heap of dirt I’ve scraped up, whatever it is. Marty directs the slow elimination process: handfuls of dirt are waved over the detector and cast aside if there is no screeching from the machine.

It squawks on one of my handfuls. I divide and divide again until the detector’s squealing is sparked by a small heap of crumbling dirt and powder which would barely fill half an egg cup.

I can see how prospecting ensnares you: you’ve whittled down the possibilities, chased down this last fragment of something, something which yet may not be gold. Now it’s down to the gentle brush of a finger sifting aside the red powder dirt. And there it is. A tiny nugget, undoubtedly gold in colour, about the size of a quarter of my fingernail.

I have found gold.

I’m off into town.

See you Marty, Bye…. I’ll shut the gate as I leave.

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Siberia

5/13/2018

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Along the goldfields’ roads leading to Siberia, Western Australia, the sparse area once a townsite spawned by a fruitless goldrush, the muted greens of the scrub are coloured sporadically by patches of ruby dock, a small red plant brought to Australia by cameleers as feed for their camels or to pad the pack saddles. The exotic plant grows in patches, I am told, which indicate where cameleers paused, the seed either leaking from the camel bags or spilled as it was fed to camels. Another plant with a tale to tell has been growing in Siberia for more than 115 years, although to look at it you might not think it is that old - and that’s a story in itself, too.

Once you find Siberia*, you will find a solitary bougainvillea, out of place amidst the scrub and scrap of the former townsite. Nearby is a small pit in the ground with some rusty tin which may have once lined it. At the base of the bush is an assortment of vessels: tins, cans, 20 litre water containers.

The pit is all that remains of the Reward Hotel, one of two hotels built in the wake of the fatal goldrush of October 1898. The Reward was owned by James and Mabel Kirkham, whose fourth child, a boy, was stillborn or died soon after birth. His little body was buried in the garden of the hotel and the bougainvillea planted to mark his grave. The Kirkhams left Siberia for South Australia in about 1919 taking their hotel with them, but many years later Mabel returned to Siberia and the bougainvillea. She is reported to have said, while standing by the purple bush: “That bougainvillea will never die - my heart is buried under it.”

Mabel died in 1965.

Fifty years later the bougainvillea was not doing so well. All that now marked the grave, thanks to a severe drought, was a bunch of dry sticks poking out of he ground. Local passers-by started to water the twigs until eventually a green shoot appeared. The bush is not doing so badly now, standing at 2 metres tall, its similar diameter supported by an arch. A tradition has now developed: visitors are asked to pour a few drops of water from the containers left there onto the bush to help keep it going. A small history and visitors’ book is there for well-wishers to sign before heading on their way.

Mabel Kirkham would surely be pleased with that.

*Siberia is best found by following the Golden Quest Trail from Ora Banda. Full details are given in the Golden Quest Guide Book or app.

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Out of range at Helena Aurora

Kookynie , WA - a roundabout tale of a one-horse town...

Shark Bay, WA

Under the Gimlet Tree

On the Quest for Gold

Siberia

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