Mon, 28th Oct, 2024 Bush camp at Cat Camp on Holland Track, south-west of Coolgardie to Bush amp at Flat Rock on Holland Track, east of Hyden, WA (Holland 4WD Track)

11.8 degrees at sunrise which is 5am. 20 degrees by the time we got up at 7.45am. Very windy.

Back onto the track.

Good section then back to slowly roll through all the holes as it is easier than going around them in some spots.

Steve decided this one was good for photo. A bit narrow!

More photos of the different country we go through.

This one definitely needs the trees cut back.

Back to the red soil area again. Lots of ’4WD play spots’ around here. The photos don’t depict the depth and angles too well.

Lots of white flowers through here. Spotted some purple and yellow flowers too.

Long straight section. We are feeling for the pioneers who pushed their wheelbarrows along this track in hope of finding their fortunes.

Reached an intersection of the Marvel Loch/Forrestania Road. There is a visitor book that we signed and a wrecked ute. There were only 4 other travellers in the book from the last few days.

We continued on the Holland Track.

Back into the red soil area and rolled through the dry bog holes. Next section was all white soil and it was a big open area full of dry boggy tracks.

Met a State Barrier Fence at the bottom east edge of a Nature Reserve and turned left to run down alongside it.

It isn’t the No. 1 one as it stopped and we drove around the bottom of it. Long straight section in low shrubs.

Turned off onto a track to Sandalwood Rocks for lunch. Lots of old camp fires around here.

Steve noticed we have lost one of the scuppers - they were getting brittle but that section of close bushes must have been too much for it. One of the actuator protectors has been bent at the top too but we think that was one of the harder trees we pushed past earlier on.

Continued along the loop track. Pretty flowers down the middle of the track and red bottle brushes and white flowered bushes along the side. We had been passing orange bottle brushes but they were not plentiful like the red ones area.

Back onto the Holland Track. More bog areas with bypasses that were too tight for us so we continued rolling through the holes trying to keep the camper as level as possible.

Met two cars heading north and they were kind enough to pull off into the shrubs to let us through. We exchanged trak info over the UHF and continued on through more rutted ground.

We are noticing machined pushed areas by the track and drill holes so I put Trilobite on and saw that this area is under a current mining lease. Further along is old gold mines but obviously there mustn’t have been much on the surface otherwise the old timers would have stopped there. The track is wider because of the machinery I suppose so not getting as many pinstripes down the side now.

Met another vehicle with two chaps inside and they pulled off for us too - very nice. Glad we didn’t meet them on the narrow rutted sections.

Nice straight section then back into the eroded red dirt section again which is going uphill. Plenty of detours but most had recent churned up sections too. Steve just slowly worked his way along.

Reached ‘Bounty Gold Mine’ according to Trilobite but it is now being mined for lithium (sign says Mt Holland Lithium Mine).

Met another vehicle - a foreign chap, so let him know there was more vehicles in front of him. Busy track!

Getting hillier now. The track then turned sharp right going downwards so we could travel around on the ridge. Then it went straight down a rocky descent with a hard right on rocks to climb up again. Steve and the truck negotiated it well.

Back into the red bogged soil section again with chopped up bypasses so Steve just checked out the track and worked out the best way through the holes to keep us level.

Right turn to head to Mt Holland (477m) with power lines beside the track (for the mine I suppose). Climbed up a ridge and left the power lines. Mt Holland off to the left but it wasn’t much higher than us on the ridge. Corrugated ironstone country.

Pulled in near the gated entrance to the lithium mine to have a cuppa.

Continued on and met the Southern Cross/Forrestania Road which also had a sign about being used by the lithium mine. We went down a bit to enter the Holland Track again but didn’t get too far when the track curved and it was eroded on one side so we would be at a big angle. It was tight scrub so there wasn’t any bypasses. I had had enough adventure and for another 42km I decided that the nice big road was better. No point pushing it and rolling over. It has been an interesting experience. We turned around and headed back towards Mt Holland which looked better from this side.

Onto the wide road and we zoomed along - much better. This road takes us down to the John Holland Way (Hyden-Norseman Road).

Passed through Lake Cronin Nature Reserve but there was no signs about visiting the lake etc so we just kept going till we met the main road (still gravel) and turned westward. Open low shrub country.

Onto some new bitumen then stopped to check out an info board about clearing this area for agricultural plots but it didn’t take off. We can see the wheat/grain fields in the distance.

Continued on to the next info board where the Holland Track crosses this main road. This is where we would have come out if we had continued on the 4WD track.

Crossed the road and headed down the Holland Track again to find a spot to camp for the night. Lots of pretty flowers in the bushes along here too. Spotted two vehicles with caravans pulled off the track and stopped to chat. They were heading to Norseman and saw this on Wikicamps - called Flat Rock. Emu Rock is the one marked on the track info but it is further along.

We decided this will do us too and drove onto the flat rock area and set up for the night.

Walked over the rock to check out the views - better shot of the wheat/grain fields in the distance. The flies are still very friendly.

Our own waterhole!

We have good phone reception again and two videos came through from Fran of Sophia laughing and dancing in her ‘jolly jumper’. So beautiful. 

Has been a warmer day - got to 32 degrees and it’s still 30 degrees at 5pm but there is a cool breeze so we will be closing the windows again once the sun goes down.

Lovely sunset too.

After dinner the wind picked up again giving the camper a gentle rock.