Getaway 4WD Club – Mid-West Rock Tour (October 2023)

On an overcast morning we left home and headed to Gidgegannup Bakery, for the obligatory pies and coffee.
Once we were all acquainted with the lovely Lee, and were all fed and watered we all climbed into our respective vehicles and headed off. All on our way by 8.40am.
We arrived at Dowerin at around 10 am for a brief comfort stop, the weather is still overcast but not cold, we are back on our way (it really was a very brief stop).

Next stop Minivale, once a thriving community, now a ghost town. We arrived at the Minivale bak-ery at 10.30, unfortunately not a working bakery, but very interesting all the same. After poking around the old bakery we got back in our cars, and headed out to see what else we could find. We found an old church which was still in use, a campsite, and a huge silo, we met a couple that in-formed us that inside the silo was a train museum, the door was not locked and open to the public, so we went in, what was inside was a real treat. Inside were lots of carriages from passenger trains one of which was The Australind Express, High and low sided wagons, a Bogie Wheat Wagon, and the Rabbit Wagon used during the great depression to transport Rabbits to bring in food and money, unfortunately the poor bunnies were not considered to be perishable and arrive smelly and rotting! rabbit stew anyone!!! These are just a few of the wagons found in this remarkable museum, definite-ly worth a visit, a very good find.

At lunch time we arrived at our first rock, Carlbeon Rock, we had a good walk around, sun is shin-ing and the flies joined us for lunch.

Back in the vehicles we get to rock #2 Mollerin Rock, again we had a good look around and were back in the saddle around 2pm.

Beagleys Breakaway was our next stop at around 3.10pm, very speccy, stopped for photos and a quick inspection. Back in the vehicles we decided to take a detour to try to find a way to get to the top of a breakaway, we found a track after a bit of searching, and were rewarded with fabulous panoramic views.

Back in the saddle, now we need to find a campsite, on our way back we came to a steep decent which we decided to go down, happily we all made it, on the way to our camp for the night we came across Tampo Well, a government well which obviously we had to investigate.

We set up camp at BilliBurning Rock, we weren’t the only campers but we found a secluded area and set up.
The usual camp set up began, finding wood, lighting the fire, cooking dinner and talking rubbish before heading off to our beds, all in all a very good first day.