The WA Goldfields are not all about mining – there are vast areas of woodlands to explore, filled with majestic Salmon Gums and very few people.
This Trek starts at the small township of Bullfinch, which offers cheap and friendly hotel and caravan park accommodation. It then passes through Koolyanobbing before heading north into the remote Mount Manning Nature Reserve and through the lesser known Helena and Aurora Ranges.
You’ll experience the remoteness of the area around the mysterious Yowie Rocks, before getting back to more well known points of interest such as Lake Ballard and Menzies.
Goongarrie Station is the end point for this Trek. The DEC provide homestead accommodation or campsites – plus a welcoming warm shower to wash off the dust.
How to Use this Trek Note
- To download this information and the route file for offline use on a phone, tablet, headunit or laptop, go to the app store and purchase ExplorOz Traveller. This app enables offline navigation and mapping and will show where you are as you travel along the route. For more info see the ExplorOz Traveller webpage and the EOTopo webpage.
Environment
The Trek meanders through mainly flat country, but still provides the opportunity to climb the various ranges and granite outcrops the trek passes through. The environment consists of Eucalypt woodlands for most of the trek until you reach Lake Ballard, where you are greeted by a unique salt lake.
If the track between Kurrajong Waterhole and the Evanston to Menzies Road has not been cleared, this section of the track is extremely overgrown and scratchy. As of April 2010 a DEC team was opening up the track and grading it, which will make the travelling much more enjoyable and less challenging to keep finding the track and avoiding scratches.
History
The small mining town of Bullfinch falls within what we now know as the Shire of Yilgarn. Pre colonisation the Yilgarn was inhabited by Aboriginals from the western desert and south west areas. The name 'Yilgarn' is aboriginal for 'white stone' or 'quartz'. Gold was discovered in Bullfinch in 1910 and it subsequently became a gazetted town in the same year. For the next 60 years Bullfinch had multiple mining lease holders and by 1950 the Copperhead mine was employing 130 men, which subsequently built a new town. Production ceased in 1963.
Gazetted in 1895, Goongarrie is an abandoned goldfields town site with a rich cultural history. It has multiple graves and a long history of prospecting and mining. A short drive from the Goongarrie town site is Goongarrie Station - This homestead was once a functioning sheep station but now a conservation reserve managed by the DEC.
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