The Great Western Woodlands is becoming a popular travel destination and a stopover on the road travelling across Australia. Travelers wanting to experience the outback, go four wheel driving and bird watching are increasingly drawn to the region.
Self Drive trails such as the Goldfields Woodlands Discovery Trail, the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail and the Green Trail near Coolgardie are also popular.
Tourism WA highlights this region as the ‘Golden Outback’ and advertises many of the self drive trails.
The regions rich culture and heritage as well as its extraordinary nature make it an enticing holiday destination. Because this area is sparsely populated and remote, travellers are urged to take appropriate precautions and good maps before setting out on an adventure.
The Great Western Woodlands has enormous tourism potential and it is expected that this will fast become an important economic driver to local communities as the area becomes better known.
In this picture- the Holland track
John Holland and his track
In September 1892, prospectors Bayley and Ford announced to the world that they had ‘struck it rich’ at a place called Fly Flat, just outside of Coolgardie. News of their extraordinary find spread around the world like wildfire, and soon gold seekers were pouring into Western Australia from all directions.
Many came from the eastern states and landed at the port of Albany. From there they took a train north to York or Northam before setting out on the arduous trek east to the diggings. Clearly a short cut to the new goldfields from a town further south on the railway line would be advantageous for both the prospectors and the town, which could then capture the lucrative business of supplying the would-be miners.
Several parties set out from Katanning or Broomehill but were turned back by what appeared to be a harsh and waterless landscape. Then John Holland, an experienced bushman engaged in sandalwood carting and kangaroo shooting in the Broomehill district, took up the challenge. With his party of Rudolph and David Krakouer, John Carmody, and five ponies with a light dray, he set out from Broomehill in April 1893. Just two months and four days later they reached Coolgardie, having not only blazed a trail but having cleared a functional cart track as well. Almost immediately, the track was being used by hundreds of eager diggers, travelling on horseback, in camel teams carrying supplies, on bicycles, or on foot, pushing wheelbarrows.
The 500 kilometre route between Broomehill and Gnarlbine Rock south-west of Coolgardie was claimed at the time to be the longest cart track ever cut in one stretch in Western Australia.
Unfortunately for those who had backed Holland’s audacious mission, however, the Track proved short-lived. The extension of the eastern railway from Northam to Coolgardie just three years later effectively put an end to its use.
Today the original Holland Track serves as a four-wheel drive ‘adventure’ route, but the “John Holland Way” is a more easily traversed gravel road following a similar route from Broomehill to Coolgardie. You too can follow the wheel ruts of this remarkable bushman if you visit the Great Western Woodlands.
