Finally out of a nice warm bed at 9:10AM the rush was on for a 10:00AM departure on today’s excursion. Packed lunch of broccoli soup and leftover salmon pasta from the night before.
First stop was Southern Cross. Forgot to pick up the newspaper (regretted that for the rest of the day as everywhere was sold out after that). Stopped at Yellowdine for hot chips (and no newspaper). We had a look over the local dam and did a drive-by of the old Station Master’s house.
From that point I was relying on memory to find the Gnamma Hole and Lone Grave on the Marvel Loch to Yellowdine Road. I was fairly sure they were close together and at least one of them was signposted. It turned out the grave was signposted (vaguely) and my memory kicked in as we approached the gnamma hole. We have just had the first rains of the season out here so the gnamma hole was dry. In a month or so it should be gurgling fresh water.
Duladgin Rock Gnamma Hole
We then went in search of Weowanie Rock; thought we’d found it, but hadn’t. It was a nice spot though and Paddy put on his best Jesus impersonation. Weowanie Rock soon turned up though and it is quite impressive. It is a very picturesque drive up to this point (if you like the outback Aussie landscape). We drove right across the top of the rock. There is a swimming hole on the rock and some other interesting formations.
Don't mess with the Jesus!
The track from Weowanie to Karalee is a lot less travelled and the Scratch-O-Meter (R) went into the red zone for quite a while. Eventually Karalee Dam was in sight. There was a beautiful couple of drake and duck by the dam. There is quite a bit of work going on at Karalee to improve the campground and associated facilities. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start charging for camping when it is all done.
Karalee Rock is amazing. It is huge and the engineering achievement of using it as a catchment more than 100 years ago is amazing. The vegetation on the rock itself is worth seeing. Beauty in such a harsh environment. Nature never ceases to amaze.
With a spare hour up our sleeves we ventured into the wilderness trying to find Mt Clara, but ran out of time and headed back to the highway. It was a cruisy drive home as we were behind a big rig (B double) whose rear trailer was pretty wobbly. I don’t know whether he was drunk, tired or just a crap driver, but there was no way I was going around him, so we just backed off and cruised along at 100km/h.
We made it back to camp at Moorine Rock at 4:00PM; in time to pack up the awning and the ablutions tent ready for an early departure – some of us still have to work you know!
Margaritas ready at 5:00PM and that’s a wrap.
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