The final part of the journey to Mt Augustus and arrival yesterday

Saturday 7th to Monday 10th June, 2025

We had a couple of nights on the road here to Mt Augustus. The first day we drove approximately 200kms to the Murchison Settlement. We stayed overnight at the Roadhouse/caravan park. We were on grass with non potable water and power, with a short walk to excellent toilets/showers. Even I took advantage of the showers, though I usually want to shower in the Sherwood.

On arrival we found out that the kitchen closed at 5.30 p.m. As we were hungry and hadn’t had lunch we decided to have a meal right away. We had steak and onions on Turkish bread with salad on the side. The dining area at the Roadhouse is very attractive and we were glad we had decided to stay there.

Stephen had a shower before sunset and I went for a walk to look at the Murchison Rangeland Botanical Walk. It is well maintained and signposted and I thought that Stephen would enjoy a walk there in the morning.

In the morning we packed up, bought 10 litres of water in 2 five litre bottles, fuelled up, emptied the toilet, and went and parked near the walk. We spent about half an hour there.

On the first day we found that most of the road was bituminised, apart from about a 40k section of gravel. However, for our second and third days, the roads were all gravel. Still, it’s a good road and there was evidence of graders and other machinery working on it.

Our second night was spent at Billing Pool. This is a free camp and we were one of only two campers spending the night. We enjoyed a walk along the banks of the river bed to explore the pools. The river bed is like a gorge and our camping spot was overlooking a dry section.

Another quiet night, and we slept well.

On the second day we reached the turnoff to Mt Augustus and took many photos of the sign. The gravel road became a bit more rough, with even more dips. Fortunately we didn’t have to do any water crossings, even at the creeks, which have a concrete causeway to help getting through. But it was evident that the rain, when it comes, causes a lot of flooding and maintaining the road in good condition must be a major, ongoing job.

On the first day we crossed a creek with a very steep entry and exit, fine for our little vehicle, but as we saw two articulated road trains shortly before we got there I could only imagine what it was like for them.

We stopped for lunch at the Gascoyne River picnic area yesterday. According to Wikicamps some people stay overnight there, but there were signs forbidding camping so we imagine they must have ignored them. Anyway, we wanted to get to our destination and it was only 100kms away, so we kept driving and arrived at about 3.30 p.m.

There are surprisingly few people here and we had a choice of camp sites. We went to the evening meal at the pub, a lovely beef stew with mashed potatoes. The deserts had sold out so the waitress made us up icrecream with chocolate sauce and kit kat wafers. She charged us $10 for these, the deserts were $15 each, so we considered that a win.

This morning I’ve done a big load of washing and Stephen helped hang them out.

The weather in the last few days has been ideal, cool enough overnight to snuggle under the doona and clear, sunny days in the low 20’s. It may be a little warmer here, mid twenties, but overall just lovely. It was windy in the afternoons, but it’s too early today to know if we will have a windy afternoon, only 11.30 a.m.

We spoke with Matt last night. He seemed agitated and was clearly trying to tell us something, but as we don’t understand him, we don’t know why. We did ring a bit late whilst he was getting ready for bed, so perhaps 6.00 p.m. would be a better time.