An Attempt at the Holland Track

We packed up our Christmas camp after a very relaxing three night stay – unheard of for us – and decided to head inland to Kalgoorlie-Boulder via the Holland Track. We figured the coast would be extremely busy at peak school holidays and over the Christmas-New Year break, and we don’t make bookings anymore unless forced to (cough, Spirit of Tasmania), so in popular areas we knew we’d get the last pick of sites squashed between backpackers and a caravan or something… no thank you.

The Holland Track starts at Hyden WA and ends at Coolgardie WA, and was forged by the explorer John Holland as a faster way to the Goldfields of Western Australia. Many tried and failed before him, but he succeeded and his track was used by over 18,000 people through the gold rush of the 1890’s. It’s still an epic 4wd track today, which we were very much looking forward to tackling. Our plan was to head up to the Holland Track, take a couple of days driving the track, and then spend New Year’s Eve in Kalgoorlie. Sadly, all was not to go to plan (dun dun dun – foreshadowing!)

Here’s a screenshot of a map of our entire trip so far to orient you to where we are in Australia. The portion covered in this post is in green, and parts of our route previously covered are in red.

We split the drive to Hyden up into two days, and found some great bush camp sites along the way. WA has been really fabulous for free camping, and we’ve been really enjoying the isolation and solitude at these sites.

Around Hyden, the main attraction is some interesting rock formations just outside of town, including Wave Rock…which is exactly what it sounds like.

We also hiked up to the top of Wave Rock to check it out. I can happily report that it is like walking on top of a huge rock. With some other rocks on top of it. And lizards.

I think Hyden could do so much more to capitalise on the history of the area. I believe there was a massive sandalwood operation, as well as the start of the Holland Track – but the Holland Track in particular seems to be sort of an afterthought for area tourism with track conditions not readily available and not much highlighting of 4wd tourism by the local council.

At any rate, we were super excited to start the track late that afternoon. We were re-fuelled, carrying lots of food and water, and had informed a couple of reliable contacts of what to do if we didn’t get in touch with them by a certain date/time. We were so ready for this.

We had first read about the Holland Track in 4wd Action magazine. In the year before our trip we began stockpiling 4wd Action and scanning featured trips and campgrounds that interested us. In their Holland Track run, they went after a few rainy days, and the track was super muddy. They got stuck a few times. However, we were tackling the track in the middle of summer, and in a drought… we didn’t think we’d have any mud or water crossings to deal with at all.

The track is sponsored by the Toyota Landcruiser Club of WA, meaning (I think) that they put up signage and reccy the track frequently. We’d love to see the Sydney Jeep Club sponsor a few tracks like this!! The above sign in particular reminds 4 wheel drivers to take care of the track and behave ethically. Yes please!!

We started the track in the late afternoon, so didn’t make it too far before setting up camp for the night. We had the place all to ourselves – a welcome difference from what we were sure were hoards of tourist and holidaymakers along the coast. Ahhh, peace and quiet and a killer starry sky overhead.

The next morning we continued slowly along the track, with no dramas whatsoever except a few dry ruts, and the rabbit-proof fence, which necessitated a gate-opening (and careful re-closing – imagine being responsible for the next rabbit epidemic!!).

Meandering along the track, we came upon a few gnarly sections – lots of mud and deep bog holes filled with murky water – but luckily there were chicken tracks (ahem, responsible tracks) around all of them, which we happily took to avoid damaging both the track, and our vehicle.

One of my favourite things about these outback tracks, is the way the scenery changes dramatically over just a few kilometres. In the above photos you can see the terrain is like a hard packed yellow clay, with lots of stones and scrub. Within the first few hours on the track we also saw red dirt and tall trees…

And packed tall mallee trees creating a tunnel of sorts (and some new bush pinstripes for the Jeep)

There’s a fair bit of wildlife too, including bob tailed lizards sunning themselves in the middle of the track (don’t squish them!) – and apparently thorny devils too, although we didn’t manage to see any 🙁

And one of the main highlights in the middle of the track, a huge mallee fowl nest.

Mallee Fowl are a threatened species of bird. They dig these mounds for their eggs to regulate the egg temperature at 33ºC, and open or close ventilation holes in the top layer of sand depending on air temperature. They only live in a few areas of Australia. It would be a privilege to see one (we haven’t – they apparently have amazing camouflage) and it’s absolutely a privilege to be able to see one of their nests. Super cool.

After checking out the mallee fowl nest, we continued on to Mount Holland for a lunch stop, where we ran into a couple of Aussies who had been “out bush” for a week, and their adorable dog who seemed happy to check out the shade under the Jeep.

While there, we also spotted a ranger truck drive by, stop, reverse back, and head towards us. They pulled up to where we were eating lunch, and strolled over for what we thought was a chat, but turns out they were warning us that they had only just come by to close off the track heading north due to a massive bush fire in the area. We had known there was a bush fire nearby, as we’d checked the track conditions the day before, but the track was still open as the fire had been contained at the time. It just goes to show you how quickly conditions can change with bush fires. We count ourselves lucky that the rangers saw us – if we had stopped for lunch a little earlier and continued down the track before they closed it, we may have been stopped by the bushfire itself.

We headed to the now-closed northbound track just for a photo op (shameless). Luckily Mount Holland is at the intersection of the Holland Track and a major through road, so we didn’t have to turn back and go all the way to Hyden, but were able to continue south east toward Norseman on major roads and then north to Coolgardie, bypassing the bushfire.

So we didn’t get to complete the full Holland Track – only about a third of it in fact. Such is life in the Australian bush – fires are unpredictable and extremely dangerous, and we’re thankful to the rangers for not messing around. That night, we camped just outside of Coolgardie, and planned to spend the next two days hitting up three more Aussie bush pubs, to soothe our sorrows with a few coldies.