Early to bed and early to rise. Up at dawn before the flies and promptly cooked breakfast of bacon and egg. Others rose later and I suspect shared their breakfast with the flies!
Today was to be another long day of driving. Continuing east on the highway we reached Coolgardie, where most of the group refuelled. Knowing I had 100 litres on the trailer, I didn't bother. Instead I deflated the tyres in preparation for venturing off the bitumen.
On leaving Coolgardie we changed direction heading south (purple line) through the western edge of the goldfields. Much of this area used to be covered in Sandalwood. At one point Sandalwood oil was more valuable than gold. Almost all the Sandalwood has now gone and what little remains is mostly conserved or protected. The land has reverted to the ubiquitous eucalyptus trees.
Our first stop was Burra Rock. Another of those large isolated rocks surrounded by flat land. Here also the early Europeans built a low wall around the lower edge of the rock to collect the infrequent rainfall.
Several members of the group decided to cool down by going for a swim.
The next stop was Cave Hill Rock. A similar setup to Burra Rock. The Parks & Wildlife camping areas in both locations were being used. I assumed most of the campers were from Coolgardie or Kalgoorlie.
The area on the rock was littered with animal dung.
My guess was camel dung as I assumed the feral camels visited the rock for water. Another member of the group suggested wild donkey dung. That surprised me as I'd never seen a wild donkey out here and didn't know they existed.
Well I know now because two hours later we passed two wild donkeys on the side of the track!
We continued on along another less frequently used track before being stopped by a fallen tree across the track.
My small DeWalt battery powered chainsaw made quick work removing the tree.
The day ended with us reaching our wild campsite just off the Hyden-Norsemen Road.
After dusk I cooked a meal consisting of lamb chops, potatoes and peas. I'm a terrible and lazy cook. Therefore I tend to cook something easy, which must include little in the way of dirty dishes to clean afterwards.
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