Mount Augustus - the worlds LARGEST rock
We left exmouth and headed onto the Wool Wagon pathway, a 400km dirt road - enroute to Mt. Augustus. We spent one night camped at Mangaroon creek, which was about half way along the Wool Wagon route. It was a peaceful spot, plenty of firewood about and we had the place to ourselves.
The next day, we continued the trek to Mt Augustus where we checked into the Tourist park and set ourselves up. A nice park with great facilities and green grass! We parked up towards the back section, so we could have nice un-obstructed views of Mt Augustus.
Up at the crack of dawn, we headed to the summit trail carpark. We were on the track🥾 by 7:30am. There is 2 ways you can hike up to the summit, we decided to go the easy/normal route up and do the alternative route on the way back down. It took us 1 hour 40minutes to reach the summit (6km one way).
After signing the guest book & taking a few pictures, Kurt surprised me and popped the question! It was a beautiful moment with spectacular views and no one else around. You get some Telstra signal right up the top, so we called both our parents to let them know the news.
Safe to say, Mt Augustus will now have a very special place in our hearts.
We hiked back down and along the gully trail. It was a rather physical track with lots of rock hopping. Glad we didn’t come up this track, as we could really feel it in our joints hiking down. We would still recommend doing the gully trail one way, it had very different scenery to the main track and leads you to Flintstone rock. Flintstone Rock has aboriginal engravings under it & not far from here we found a small cave full of animal bones.
Overall, the hike WASN’T as BAD as we had expected. The first 1.5km of the track is relatively flat, then there is a 1.5km strong incline which in our opinion is the hardest part. You’ll reach a three ways sign which means you have done the hardest part. Now there is a further 2.5km walk, which again is quite flat & easy & at the last 300m, you need to zig zag up a path to reach the summit. Start it early in the morning, pack plenty of snacks & water and just take your time and enjoy the views.
Safe to say, we just relaxed the rest of the day away with some beers, after an eventful morning. The following day, we headed out to do the loop drive around the base of Mt Augustus and sight see a few more points of interest. We checked out The Pound, Mundee Petroglyph, Ooramboo Petroglyph & Edneys Spring.
That night, the staff opened up the ‘sometime bar’, a small bar onsite that they open up sometimes. We had a few beers with fellow travelers and shared some stories. A great evening for our last night at Mt Augustus. In the morning we topped up with diesel, headed out to Cattle Pools for a look before starting the journey south-east, towards the goldfields.
Well Mt Augustus you are spectacular. We are so surprised on how little Aussie’s have heard about you and all your glory. At double the size of Uluru and a claim to be the Worlds Largest Rock, we think more people need to hear about Mt Augustus!
Next stop Meekatharra