WA Trek 2013 Eastwards Part 1

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Date: 11 September 2013 6:14 PMTopic: WA Trek 2013 Eastwards Part 1

7 Sept

Theres something odd about today but I cant recall what it is.

Ah, yes, I dont have to do household chores today and I can have Vegemitesandwiches for lunch if I really want to.

I had a good birthday with 20+ emails from every web site I had ever subscribedand of course calls, messages or SMSs from the rellies too. Nice to know thateven when we are remote from civilisation we are still remembered.

Janet made me a bespoke birthday card in the absence of any nearby shoppingexperiences. It shows me in my natural habitat surrounded by spanners and acan of WD40.

My real birthday treat was the Oka gathering at Harrismith at the farm of Brett(outyonda). It was really good turn out with 13 Okas plus around 25 people. There


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are a few photos emerging on the Oka website and I've added a few below.

Harrismith is a very small town in the eastern wheat belt of WA, east of Katanning,north of Dumbleyung, south of Southern Cross and west of Lake Grace. Brett(outyonda) was the host and had laid on a huge pile of firewood and a large BBQmade from an old wartime sea mine.

The farm is 22,000 acres of wheat, canola and sheep and Brett also has severalyabbie dams and can sell up to 25 tons a year. He also runs outback dirt biketours (Outyonda.com) as a hobby and uses 3 Okas and a Lada as supportvehicles.

Saturday morning started fairly slowly since it rained heavily and none of us kneweach other except by web site user name but that was soon overcome by Janetissuing name tags made of masking tape and by the evening BBQ we were allacquaintances if not good friends.

It was actually fortunate that the weather wasn't too good on the Saturday, as itmeant we had to crowd around together inside his shed and get to know eachother. No splinter groups or hidden agendas.
http://outyonda.com/http://outyonda.com/http://www.byles.net/www.oka4wd.com/oka-gatherings-travels/980-western-oka-gathering-7-8th-september


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We got on pretty well with everyone and really enjoyed the 2 days.

Even though most of the discussion was Oka related, all the ladies got on welltogether as well and Brett took several groups around the farm in his 1932 truck,including yabbie catching in the dam. His small fluffy black dog Nugget goeseverywhere with him.

8 Sept

Its Charles birthday today, so yesterday was the one day in the year we are boththe same age. Happy birthday Charles.

On Sunday morning small groups were walking around looking at and underOkas and probing various technical issues. It was amazing how similar the Okaswere but also how totally different they are.

We were scattered around the farm but were coerced into a line up for theobligatory group photos.

After the line up for photos (which took an hour to organise), people started


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leaving for Perth or wherever after a most enjoyable and educational weekend.

Being Charles birthday today, I sat up late compiling a happy birthday messageto him (hes in the UK so its still his birthday for several more hours). Its been 4years since we had a joint birthday bash and suggested it was time we arrangedanother one, somewhere in the world.

9 Sept

Since it was quite late after all the photo shoots, we stayed on with Brett andanother couple for Sunday night, and another BBQ, before leaving to continueour journey east.

Todays drive took us through the endless wheat belt country and a myriad ofsmall towns. One of the best was Kulin, an RV friendly town and a really openand relaxing atmosphere, a far cry from the average location where you areimmediately hit with no this or no that signs which can be very off-putting.


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Since it was welcoming, we filled up with their free water, checked out theirextremely clean facilities and did some shopping in their supermarket. We wouldhave bought fuel too but their pump was out of action. We have no problem inspending a bit of money in small country towns, even if their prices are a bithigher, when our visits are appreciated, not just tolerated.

As if to prove this, when we were having lunch outside their nice park, a ladyKnock Knocked on our door and said she was a council advisor on tourism andhow did we like their town facilities? So we told her how much it meant totravellers to be appreciated and treated fairly and not shoe-horned intooverpriced caravan sites or rejected as unwanted gypsies.


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We asked her to pass on our congratulations to the council for their far-sightedness and confirmed that it was a 2 way street, they make travellers feelwelcome and they will stop and spend a bit of time and money. Too many NoThis or That signs and we dont even stop.

One of Kulins claims to fame is the Tin Horse Racing Carnival, the origins ofwhich have been lost in the mists of time, at least beyond the recall of the sweetyoung girl on the shire councils counter. I had gone there because of a poster inthe toilet block (stay with me on this). It had said if you like our town, call in theshire offices for a sticker to put on your caravan. So thats how I came to be in thepresence of the sweet young counter girl.

The sticker turned out to be 1m by 1m in size designed more for the side of a bus

than a small caravan but I said I could probably adapt parts of it, but sadly shesaid they didnt have any yet anyway. So to make the most of my time investment,I asked about the origins of the Tin Horse Racing Carnival and thats where Icame in.

On the way out of town on the Tin Horse Highway, and towards the race courseabout 10km away, there were scores of amusing sculptures of tin horses madefrom old oil drums distributed alongside the highway. Here is a sample:


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So we actually enjoyed our couple of hours in Kulin, a town wed never heard ofbefore but is now part of our travelling history.

Later we went to see Wave Rock again in Hyden for an hour or so and it hasn tchanged much in 25 years, its still a spectacular sight.

What has changed is the approach of the local community which is totally thereverse of Kulin. Quite apart form the overt exploitation of tourists (who wants alace museum or a toy soldier museum when youve come to see one of

Australias scenic wonders?), the entrance to Wave Rock appears from the signsto be via a caravan park which covers all the area alongside the rock and ruinsthe ambiance with the commercialism of a kiosk and caravans parkedeverywhere.

At the entrance to the rock, there is a ticket machine which says $10 per vehicleand display the ticket on the windscreen. Hang on, Wave Rock is a national parkwhich has free entry, how can they be charging an entry fee? We nearly gotcaught as many others had been, since the $10 is only a (rip off) charge for usingthe caravan park car park. You can park for free a 100m up the road at severalnational park picnic places and still walk along all the scenic parts of the rock


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quite freely. It is a huge con-trick by the caravan park owners.


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It was getting late in the day so we left Wave Rock and its exploitations andheaded east towards Norseman to look for the Holland Track, a cross country

historical gold-mining track to Coolgardie.

10 Sept

After a night in a very pleasant bush parking bay we drove towards the HollandTrack when the unexpected happened.

Weve had stones hit the windscreen but never before have we captured theevent on video. A small truck passed us and we waved, as is usual in the

Outback, but a few moments later a large stone, actually a small meteorite, camehurtling towards us. It hit the scuttle just under the windscreen, bounced back intoour path, up to the sun visor where it rattled around for about 2 seconds beforefalling on to the windscreen and bouncing off sideways. And all of this wascaptured on our crashcam recorder.

All of this was over in the blink of an eye (around 2 seconds actually) so Iextracted some stills from the movie.


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Its bounced back off the Oka (which is why it appears smaller) and into the pathof the sun visor.

And now luckily it just drops downwards.


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Snicko confirmed that it hit the windscreen just out of range of the camera.


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If a stone that size had hit the windscreen directly it may have shatteredcompletely, since its already badly cracked.

Next we came to the Holland Track. This is a narrow sandy track, stretching500km from Broomehill in western WA to the goldfields of Coolgardie. It wasdeveloped in 1893 by John Holland and his team with 5 horses and a dray to

provide access to goldfields by gold miners who flooded into the area. Now it isused as a 4WD track so we set out to see if it was navigable at this time of year.

We were only attempting half the track but only 100m into it we came upon ourfirst mud hole. We sploshed across it OK, but they became bigger and morefrequent and the first 15km took well over an hour, so reluctantly we decided toturn around a seek out a better way. To carry on it would have taken us at least 3days to complete, assuming conditions didnt get worse.

An early scare.


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Things got worse.


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We had a near disaster on a bypass track as the Oka nearly sunk in.


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And this was the final straw, we did get past this one but decided enough wasenough and we backtracked through the same mud holes again to the Hyden toNorseman road. One bogging per trip is enough.


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After 15km each way and nearly 2 hours on the Holland Track we concluded thatthis time of year is not a good time to try this one and resolved to try again anothertime.

So we stopped to re-inflate the tyres and have lunch as Janet washed the mud offthe windscreen and door handles.

Somewhere along the track one of our hub retaining rings got bent out of shape.

As we were doing this, who should pass by but Brett, whose farm we stayed on


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for the Oka gathering at Harrismith only last weekend. He was supposed to be inSydney today ferrying some new trucks back to WA but something delayed theprocess so he was on his way to Esperance instead. We were over 200km fromhis farm so it was a pure coincidence that we should meet up again so soon.

Brett, not in one of his Okas, on his way to Esperance.

However, he told us that a group of motorcyclists had called in last night. Theyhad attempted the Holland Track the day before but only got halfway when theytoo turned around and backtracked as the track became impassable, even formotorbikes. So at least our decision was ratified by another group.

Brett also told us of a good camping spot at the McDermid Rock near the VictoriaRocks turn off and thats where we are tonight, about 125km south of Coolgardie.

As you can see from the photos, the blue skies have returned as we ve movedinland and it got quite hot. We both changed back into shorts this afternoon.

11 Sept

Now in Kalgoorlie preparing for the return to Adelaide which will be in the nextentry


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Documents

WA Trek 2013 Eastwards Part 1