The Chamber of Pillars.

Just 160 kilometres of shake, rattle and dust on a corrugated track separates us from one of the red centres most obscure government run campsites, the Chambers Pillar. We finally ventured out on a weekend when Alice Springs was dancing around a pole in May, in an almost pagan/hippy roman tradition.

Just when you think it is safe enough to crank the car up to a hundred km per hour, a rough dip will play basketball with your off-roader or a bend will slide you through a corner as if Brocky was still alive. After about a hundred kilometres, we stopped to look at the Indigenous art expo at the village of Titjikala, but found that in an act of sheer defiance to the rules of capitalism the exhibition was closed on a public holiday weekend.

Around ten kilometres before arrival, a short but steep drive takes you up a high ridge where the views are 360 degrees and worth stopping for, especially that first glimpse of the Chambers Pillar. Down the hill two gates are to be negotiated by the co-driver. At one of the gates there is a sign advising you to mount your pole with a red flag to the front of your car ‘now’, to warn oncoming traffic that you are rounding the crest.  Yeah!!! Darn!!! Forgot to bring my flagpole. I was tempted to sit on top of the car waving my red undies around, but thought it too dusty up there. Two or three of those apexes were quite hair-raising. For seconds, all you can see is the bonnet creating that out of control feeling. One day someone is going to land their front wheels on someone else's bonnet.

The main event

There is a lot going on at the chamber of pillars.

For sure the highlights are the columns that have stood here as long as anyone can remember. Even though the name Chamber is of a wealthy businessman who sponsored first time explorer John MacDouell Stuart out here; the name itself evokes the feeling of a space with the pillar and surrounding rock features holding up the roof of the world. The colour changes of these rocks at dawn and dusk are truly spectacular, almost emotionally so.

 

This rock formation visible from our campsite - notice nature's window

The Indigenous locals believe that a knob-tailed gecko warrior named Itirkawara rebelled against tribal law by sleeping around with woman forbidden to him. He came to these sand dunes, took a breather, and tragically transformed into a stone pillar. The woman he travelled with turned her head away and became what is now known as Castle Rock. The message is loud and clear for future generations. If you hadn't learned it by now here it is again; don’t mess with the wrong woman.

The knob tailed gecko courtesy of Milan Zygmunt



Castle Rock from this angle looks a lot like a submarine

Some of the oldest graffiti created by the earliest settlers of the red centre is found in relatively sophisticated carvings on the rocks and surrounding the pillar. Willshire and W Bennett (mounted police), Frank Wallis (store keeper of Alice Springs) and William and Mary Hayes who’s family still owns land around here; just to name a few dating back as far as 1884.  Little did our forefathers know that this form of historical acknowledgement of hard sweat and toil, set the precedence for an all-in eyesore of epic proportions. Who would have thought that 'John 1996' thought it necessary to etch his name into history, along with countless others. Never mind that by carving your name into the soft rock, one accelerates the erosion process of this amazing ancient column . The pillar is as the newspaper clipping in the gazebo said  ‘being loved to death’ even at the risk of a $2000 fine.

The John Ross party came through in 1870 whilst scouting the area for the overland telegraph line

There are some great short walks around the rock formations and the climb up the pillar is a must. There is a sunset and sunrise viewing area and wildlife is abundant according to the information on the boards. We spotted a large variety of birds including and a couple of bats. The southern boobook owl, mulga snake and spinifex hopping mouse were a little shy.

The camping is sublime at La Chambre as French friends of ours elegantly called it. Even a long weekend attracted a low number of visitors. The bush campsites were spaced out with fire pits working overtime during the fresh evenings. This is the Northern Territory in full flight - you can pick your favourite star out of a galaxy as clear as picking sultanas out of a cinnamon scroll.




No stars this night but just a spectacular sky

The rocks at the foot of the pillar

Reluctantly, we started our journey home - leaving a beautiful place like this is always hard. We passed through a large barren area where ahead of us a cow tried to outrun our superior human invention. In true bovine fashion it stuck to the road exhausting itself, until she became tired and came to a grinding halt. We parked right next to it and admired the brahman black and white features of the meat production line of Australia, when it unabashedly lifted its tail and just let go of this intense tinkle whilst staring us out.

           

Two minutes down the road Julie spotted a skinny, lone dingo. The Dingo ran away from us but at a distance ran parallel to the slow driving car as Julie hung out, taking photos of the cantering native.  But wouldn’t you know it?  We found the answer to the Australian version of the question concerning bears, woods and stating the obvious. Does a dingo crap in the desert?




 Picture courtesy of Julie from a moving vehicle
 

 Apparently!

Grey Bits

Check out this fabulous photographer at http://www.milanzygmunt.com/reptiles/nephrurus-levis-knob-tailed-gecko-gekon-knoflikovy/

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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