It's a big, beautiful empty country out here. What you can't see, are the mine sites all over the place. It IS the Yilgarn after all so there's no shortage of gold and lithium out here.
Arriving at Mt Holland camp area, we looked up and made a call to ride up to the summit...
We both made an attempt to ride up the track to the top. JD boldly headed up first. I gave him a bit of space, then took a stab.
I came around the corner and saw two things... First, a section of very steep, VERY rough and VERY rocky track... then a big fully-laden white GS on it's left side, gingerly laid down to avoid the inevitable, if further progress was chosen.
Turning a fully-laden 1250 GSA on this slope was no menial task either I'd like to add... Luckily there were no tears all round.
JD made it down to the flat first...
I had a little diversion on the way down... but eventually made it...
The rocky surface never got better... understatement...
We wisely chose to ride back down to a flat area, then walk back up.
Views from atop the Trig Station show the vastness of our big country.
The Trig Station atop Mt Holland and survey marker
'You Are Here!' Any ideas where to find information about the survey marker?
It's that time of the year again. Wattle blooming everywhere, even on Mt Holland.
Rock formations from near the Trig Station. Any ideas?
Grinners are winners. Atop of the Mt Holland survey structure and looking around at the scenery.
The ride from Mt Holland down to the Hyden-Norseman Road was a dream really. Wide, well maintained dirt with little dust. Once on the Hyden-Norseman Road, the road conditions improved even more. So much that it was possible to ride side-by-side, applying high levels of caution at every crest of course... The GS was running low on fuel. This kept the ground-speed down to earthly levels.
At our final fuel stop in Hyden we filled tanks, added air, then bolted as the day was getting a little long in the tooth...
Just out of the servo, I stopped for this moon / shadow combination photo...
Arrived in Narrogin at 19.00 hrs in the dark. The headlight on the R1250 is a ripper with distance AND a great spread with the fog lamps on. Like the rest of the trip, there was very little traffic and only the occasional kangaroo, and no participators... We were definitely looking forward to a hot shower. Sadly a water main chose just that same moment to bust. This left us with only drinking water from the rain tank... It was good of them to have it repaired by morning.
1.9 degC in Narrogin in the morning. After much chatting and awesome hospitality, I was homeward bound at 11.00 hrs. Arrived home at 13.15 hrs.
The temperature got as high as 11 degC. Absolutely beautiful weather with clear blue skies. The route home took me down Narrakine Road to Albany Highway. Narrakine Road is highly recommended. Winding up hill down dale through lush green country-side at this time of year.
As I descended the scarp back into the city, the rain started. No biggie as I was prepared for the worst. The worst never really happened.
Trip distance = 1455 km
