Canning Stock Route Day 12 - Well 24 to Well 29/Thring Rock

Day 12 - Monday 14th July
Start - Well 24
Stop - Well 29/Thring Rock
Trip Odometer - 157.8km
Stopped time - 2 hr 15mins
Moving average - 34.0km/hr
Moving time - 4 hr 38 mins
Max speed - 62.8km/hr

We have definitely hit the higher latitudes now with the temperature at 7.30am at 35°C and up to 38.5ºC by 8.30am. We lifted camp quickly and by 9.30am had passed 8 cars all moving south. All the owners recognised us and some even called us by our first names without introductions. Good to see that real travellers do in fact use ExplorOz, and you're not all just numbers in our stats server.

We found Well 25 to be silted up, Well 26 fully restored in all aspects and the water was good, but not as good in taste as Georgia Bore, or Well 18, 15 or 6. It had a very slight taste and slight colour. We needed to take on a little more to ensure we had sufficient so put 30L in our tank and added the puritabs in case. (We did not use puritabs for any other water taken onboard from other wells).


Well 27 had lots of water, the well timbers were intact but covers were rusty, the trough was silted over and it was very dilapidated. The old steel bucket had rusted holes in the bottom and the whip pole had fallen and the trough feeder lay broken nearby. There is no real shade as the only vegetation is some low shrubs. Accordingly to the Gard's book and a notation on the Hema map, there are some aboriginal tools to be found further west of the well. We spent considerable time searching for this but there was heavy vegetation and for the life of us, we couldn't find anything at all. I'd love to know from someone who has seen the tooling area and if in fact it still remains. I was hoping to plot a GPS point for the location.

After searching in vain for the tool site we sat under the shade thrown by our vehicle and waited for the Toodyay convoy of 3 we could hear on the radios coming up behind us. They said they were about 30mins behind us so we took in the silence of our surroundings in that time whilst sipping Miso soup made up from a packet.

When the Toodyay convoy arrived the kids were thrilled to be together again and were thankful for the good company they made. Together we headed off to Well 28, with clearings for camps under ti-tree bush and then onto Well 29, that offers no possibility of camping. We found a half decent camp (but it was already full to overflowing) along the track to Thring Rock and enjoyed a group night of conversation and stories about what we'd all done over the last 2 days since we last met up.