The Holland Track. Dodging the Ditches



 

Four wheel driving has always been on our to do list. We are talking the more conservative kind of ‘off-road’ driving where you just try to get to your destination without getting bogged or smashing up the car and anyone in it. This time we are getting serious and gunning for the Holland track.




The gumtrees at dusk

Luckily for us we had some great friends to share this experience with. We met our honorary semi-grey nomadic mates at Forrestania plots, a free campsite just  7 km North from the Holland track turn off on the Norseman to Hyden road. We used our CB’s all the time to tip off each other of the more tricky parts on the track but mainly to just have some serious fun.





The meeting place at the Forretania pub??!

At the entrance of the trail an interpretive sign and a plaque pays homage to the efforts of John Holland, the Krakouer brothers and John Carmody who blazed this trail from Broomhill to Coolgardie in 1893. It was built to facilitate travelling to Kalgoorlie during the gold rush. It took the foursome just over two months to build the track, but in a cruel twist of events, a railway was laid only three years later between Northam and Kalgoorlie which rendered the Holland track almost obsolete.




Well over 100 years old

The first part on the Holland track ventures through low scrub and sandy planes. There is evidence of fires some years ago with black branches pointing to the sky with green undergrowth.

Our convoy

Throughout the track you will discover that the expedition of 1893 did not have the means to remove the big trees. Expect not to go straight, but curl your way through the tree trunks on a narrow trail. Warning!!! If you are precious about collecting some scratches on your car this may not be the place for you.





I managed to capture this very shy Malee Fowl



Suddenly deep tyre ruts will appear when you are rounding any of the countless corners. Many of these massive potholes were still full of murky water from the recent rains. You have the choice to be the cool “bogan without a course” and thrash your way through them risking to get bogged or to partake in the more civilized alternative with detours around these deep ditches. We attempted to choose the safe option, but inexplicably found ourselves balancing, tight rope like, high above these grooves with the knowledge that one false move would slam us with a bang, axel deep in the muddy depths of a rut. Not for the faint hearted but one for the white knuckle fun brigade.





The mother of all ditches.

Around the halfway point is what, at first glance, looks like an organised rubbish dump??? At further inspection it appears to be a spontaneously erected memorial with a mixture of what someone may need in the ‘sticks’ or just discarded bits and pieces. What is anyone going to do with a garden gnome out here? Inside a treasure box which is part of this ‘kooky’ display is a sign in book to make sure that you were there. We saw someone discarding their beloved broken camping toilet chair in the hope that it too will find a better use.

 




Trash or treasure?

The latter part of the track became an interesting mix of flat, low scrubs, rocky outcrops and more and more magnificent Eucalyptus forest.




The sign that had seen better days

Around Centenary Rock a massive fire swept through this area resulting in the rock and landscape looking an eerie black and brown.




Brown and blackened landscape

There were possible campsites that were marked on the map which we used all along the track, but we pulled over to camp when we saw a spot that took our fancy. Camping doesn’t come much wilder than this. Every night there was complete silence except for the lonely call of an owl and the stars were out without any pollution of electric generated lights from a town or city.

On the last night a captivating thunder and lightning storm finally took away the heat of the day.




The sky looked amazing before the storm

When we arrived in Coolgardie, we visited the graveyard to pay our respects to John Holland and our unforgettable journey on the Holland way.

We discovered that, tragically, Agnes Holland, Johns wife, contracted Typhoid and died in 1894 - a year after the completion of the track. John Holland never remarried and when John died many years later at the ripe old age of 80 in 1936, he was laid to rest in the cemetery in Coolgardie and reunited, after 42 years, with his wife Agnes at long last.

Agnes Holland discovered this spring in the middle of nowhere

 Grey Bits

A big thanks to Lynette and Stewart for the awesome chats, advise, generosity, friendship and Lynette's delicious cooking.



The Holland track runs from Hyden to Coolgardie, is 321km long and took us three day to complete. The first 60km out of Hyden and last 30 odd kms into Coolgardie are either bitumised or fast dirt roads. That means you are bush-bashing for around 230km.



Writing in the logbook

We traveled with a middle-of-the-range, four wheel drive and a roof top tent and our mates had a ‘you beaut’ landcruiser which came through also unscathed with a camper trailer. In my opinion taking a caravan on this terrain would be foolish but entertaining at the same time.




The man with the cruiser

The Toyota landcruiser club WA are in charge of maintaining the track in conjunction with DPaw. Visit their website on http://tlccwa.org.au/ for further information.


I would recommend you carry recovery gear and a satellite communication device with you on this remote trail.

A shovel can be very handy for obvious reasons.



Mmm!!! A broken toilet chair.

We ended up staying in a free campsite 10km south of Kalgoorlie called Lake Douglas. It is a pretty spot where we were lucky enough to see a spectacular sunset over the lake as fitting end to our adventure.




Enjoying lake Douglas at beer o'clock

 
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Ron and Ziggy

Ziggy and Ron.

For Geoff

The offending piece of equipment

The first we heard from Ron was his generator. We arrived at Canebrake Pool, non-generator campsite, as camp hosts with the hummm of this noisy apparatus as welcoming serenade in this otherwise tranquil bush camp. We decided to ava’ yarn. During our advance to camp Ron we heard Ziggy's feisty yap for the first time. Ziggy the dog is a Shiatsu, Maltese cross and a red hot little guard dog. Nothing gets near Ron’s trailer without being profusely barked at by the little star man. Over the next couple of weeks we heard the word “Ziggy” yelled out in all sorts of different ways. There was a gruff “Ziggy” if someone walked by or a despairing “Ziggy” when his hunting instinct took over and started chasing a bungarra. “He will tear up a goanna if it gets close” Ron pronounced. “That’s why Ziggy is always on the lead”.

Ziggy sniffing out a possible intruder

Ron soon turned out to be always up for a chat and being of true semi grey nomad ilk, we are allowing ourselves more time for other humans of any kind. Over the next three weeks we got to know Ron quite well. Ron is the person who talks the most of anyone I know that has claimed “I don’t talk much”. Ron can chew the leg off a chair but his stories were always fascinating and loved listening to them.

 

 

Ron in the middle of a story

 

 

 

We found out how his home built trailer was set up with the generator, how he stayed at free camp-sites where they allowed dogs, how he had travelled like this for the last 12 years and and how he was living without fixed abode. Ron has three kids he spoke of with some feeling, but was divorced when, in his words,“she found another fellah”. Ziggy had walked into Rons campsite three years ago and they have taken good care of each other ever since. Julie spent hours talking to Ron about grooming, worming, defleaing, what to feed Ziggy and you could see the pair go for “walkies” at least twice a day.



Ziggy just walked into Rons camp

Three weeks after saying goodbye to the pair at Cranebrake we pulled over to investigate a free camping spot called Bromus Dam close to Norseman. “Hey look Jules - it looks like another Ron” I said, pointing at a campsite in the distance. Promptly, from afar the unmistaking yap of Ziggy followed by a gruff “Ziggy". Ziggy excitedly ran to us like we were long lost friends and jumped all over us. We were all very surprised to find each other in this spot. Ron left Canebrake the same day as us and was on his way to a secret locatation around Kalgoorlie to go prospecting. He said with a cheeky grin that a 36 million dollar nugget, like the one someone found recently, would be a great supplement to his pension. In the same breath he said he would not change his lifestyle one bit but maybe emphasise “style” just a little.

Over a few coldies during what's known as the grey nomad's happy hour, Ron passionately talked about the Vietnam war. As a Corporal in the army, he was teaching his fellow soldiers specialising in the art of dropping in behind enemy lines. The troops were just about to be sent in, including young Corporal Ron, when Whitlam pulled the Aussies out of Vietnam. Ron said he felt very frustrated that he and his men could not go to Vietnam and use the skills they had trained so hard for and to do his bit for this country. An interesting discussion developed whether  Ron, in this case, was plain unlucky or if he had dodged a bullet.



We mentioned to Ron our plans to drive the excuisite Norseman to Hyden road and the rugged Holland track on the way back and asked if Ron and Ziggy would mind guarding our van. In my mind, leaving our van with Ron and Ziggy was always a safe option even though we only knew him for less than a month. Ziggy would raise mary hell if anyone came near our caravan. Ron said they were not going anywhere soon and accepted the job and the carton that would come his way.  When we checked in over the phone from Kalgoorlie he mischievously said the van was ok but he had a couple of offers on it.





Ziggy guarding our property

 

When we returned from our Holland track adventure, we sat down for a cuppa with Ron and Ziggy. In the shade of his tarpaulin Ron said, with a glint in his eye, he was chasing “real freedom”. No one bugging him, out in the wilderness and living out his life.



Ron's camp at Bromus Dam

Crucial to living free out bush, he said you needed to have a fresh water source, good enough to wash clothes and do the dishes as he pointed at a 20 litre white container with greenish water and a tadpole swimming around in it.

Ron always had his fly squat handy as the marsh flies were prolific biters. When one such horrid horse fly creature bit Ron on the leg, Ziggy was immediately at hand to lick the bite gently. We were witnessing a close and loving relationship between dog and man.

Ziggy showing affection

If you find a good place to camp next to a billabong and see Ron’s camp and his fiery grey ball of energy go over and say G’day. We wish Ron and Ziggy the best  of luck on the road and we will call his phone number every once in a while to see if they are both ok or just in case he does find that massive nugget.

 

Grey Bits

 
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Some of the carton we paid Ron with for services rendered