Canning Stock Route 2004

Saturday 21st August.

Today was a beautiful day and quite breezy to start. We stopped in at Well 4b, which was built in 1929. It still had original trough and timberwork. Some kangaroos lying on the track were disturbed when we came along. The track here was very cccorrrugggattted. Moving on, Well 5 had been rebuilt in May 2004 by the G9 Tractor Club. It had green painted fencing and orange painted windlass etc and looked somewhat out of character. The track led off here to Granite Peak Station ($20 per vehicle). On leaving Well 5, Larry, Mo and Curly had fun trying to work out what order the vehicles were in as different exit routes were used. Further on  the track, there was a  beautiful area  of   blackboys   and   the  track  was becoming more sandy as the sand hills were also starting. We did the usual ritual of collecting the firewood before arriving at Well 6 (Pierre Springs), which was only 50 km from the previous camp. This well had been rebuilt in 1991 and 2002 by the Geraldton 4WD Club. The water here was beautiful and clean and a bucket was supplied. Father emu with chick came to visit. We had a terrific bush shower. The guys erected a tarp around a tree, which gave us 3 walls and a lovely bush view.  It was great to feel clean again. There was also a new toilet here. The camping area has the most magnificent ghost gums. Nature entertained us with parent bird feeding 2 babies and at night a spinifex hopping mouse came out to retrieve some food we left for it. Two other vehicles were at this campsite and two called in briefly. That was a total of four vehicles heading south for the day.

Sunday 22nd August.

After packing up and leaving camp the first stop was to climb Ingebong Hills to get a very good overall view and to view the aboriginal artwork. Our next well was Well 7, which had water in it. It also had a trough but the well timbers had fallen in. Many finches could be heard but were not easily seen. After this was Willy Willy Bore, which was working and had cattle nearby. Well 8 was different in that it was log lined to its full depth of 18.2 m and it had logs across the top of it. There was a shaft, the wheel and timber for the trough. We are now starting into termite mound country.  Well  9 (Weld Springs) was in a very interesting area. The trough timbers were still there and nearby were the remains of a thatched roof stone fort, which had been built to protect the exploring party from

aboriginal attack. It was called Forrest's Fort and was built in 1874. Nearby was also an original survey peg marked PA 54, which was put there by surveyors Payne and Anderson. Here the CSR meets with the track from Carnegie Station. Continuing on we saw five bustards on the track. Well 10 had a very heavy bucket and the water was a long way down. Well 11 (Goodwin Soak) was located on a much more sandy part of the track. There were a lot of finches around, as there with all the wells that have accessible water. This well was in a very open area and we were looking for shade for a lunch stop as then day was quite hot. The track here was very windy and sandy and there were many grevilleas and desert oaks. Aerodrome Lake was a huge expanse with no vegetation and seemingly dry. Next stop was Well 12 was reconstructed by Treks Across Australia in July 2003 and Ambrose Canning (great grandson of Alfred Canning) was part of the party. We measured the depth of the water in the well at 4.5 m deep. We put a bucket down into the well to rescue a mouse, which was swimming, but looked very exhausted. Colin dried him off, put him down and he staggered off. This was our wildlife good deed for the day. Nearing Well 13, we came across a Land Rover, which has been burnt out some time ago. Well 13 had fallen in but the trough was still there and two buckets. We saw some camels in the distance and two more bustards. Well 14 had also caved in and everything was derelict. There were plenty of native hibiscus around here and lots of budgies. We went to a rocky outcrop, which gave us panoramic views of the area. Some of the ground was absolutely carpeted with lovely purple flowers. No other vehicles were sighted today. Camp for the night was at Well 15, which was reconstructed in July 1998. There was a spectacular display of clumps of small white flowers here. There was a chorus of frogs tonight.

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