There's a track...
We left Cape Arid on the Mt Ragged Track which meets up with the Balladonia Track that joins the Eyre Highway at Balladonia. Ever since we’ve been talking about this trip and looking at a big map of Australia I (Nic) had been keen to take this track – I think I just loved the idea of being able to skip some of the Eyre Highway and take the road less travelled or something!!
The track alternated between soft sand, dried out mud potholes, limestone outcrops and corrugations. It was fine, although we later discovered that we probably had given the camper trailer a bit of a hammering – more about that later.
From all over Cape Arid NP you can see Mt Ragged in the distance. The track takes a direct line towards Mt Ragged, no deviations, and we passed through some beautiful country with Mt Ragged just getting closer & closer.
It is an impressive sight – in such a flat landscape it looks quite majestic. And more heavily vegetated than similar clumps of rock we know & love. We set up camp for the night at the foot of Mt Ragged sharing our home among the gum trees with a trio of tawny frog-mouths. They are very funny birds – doing their best to be bits of dead tree – but perched on a pine log and unavoidably blinking and shuffling occasionally.
We thought we’d snared another solo campsite until a late arrival of Andrew in a big Oka truck. But we kept to ourselves, and sitting by our campfire we felt like the only people for miles.
We climbed Mt Ragged in the morning, a fairly steep scramble up a track strewn with glistening quartz shards. But the real hazard was the relentless MARCH FLIES!! Combined with the steamy heat of the day their stinging attacks were hard to bear and left Nic, in particular, physically and mentally scarred! But the torments were not in vain - the cool breeze at the summit was only surpassed by the all encompassing views to the coast at Israelite Bay.
Just that short time at Cape Arid and on the Balladonia track were enough for Eyre Highway to come as a bit of shock. After having bumped our way over the final 80km, we paused at the end of the track a bit stunned by the traffic flying past… and then joined in to head east.
The track alternated between soft sand, dried out mud potholes, limestone outcrops and corrugations. It was fine, although we later discovered that we probably had given the camper trailer a bit of a hammering – more about that later.
From all over Cape Arid NP you can see Mt Ragged in the distance. The track takes a direct line towards Mt Ragged, no deviations, and we passed through some beautiful country with Mt Ragged just getting closer & closer.
It is an impressive sight – in such a flat landscape it looks quite majestic. And more heavily vegetated than similar clumps of rock we know & love. We set up camp for the night at the foot of Mt Ragged sharing our home among the gum trees with a trio of tawny frog-mouths. They are very funny birds – doing their best to be bits of dead tree – but perched on a pine log and unavoidably blinking and shuffling occasionally.
We thought we’d snared another solo campsite until a late arrival of Andrew in a big Oka truck. But we kept to ourselves, and sitting by our campfire we felt like the only people for miles.
We climbed Mt Ragged in the morning, a fairly steep scramble up a track strewn with glistening quartz shards. But the real hazard was the relentless MARCH FLIES!! Combined with the steamy heat of the day their stinging attacks were hard to bear and left Nic, in particular, physically and mentally scarred! But the torments were not in vain - the cool breeze at the summit was only surpassed by the all encompassing views to the coast at Israelite Bay.
Just that short time at Cape Arid and on the Balladonia track were enough for Eyre Highway to come as a bit of shock. After having bumped our way over the final 80km, we paused at the end of the track a bit stunned by the traffic flying past… and then joined in to head east.
posted by Tim and Nic at
8:45 am
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