The Great Western Woodlands is an internationally significant area of great biological richness.

It is the largest remaining area of intact Mediterranean climate woodland left on Earth – comparable to Africa’s Serengeti.

Covering almost 16 million hectares – about the same size as England – it is a continuous band of generally eucalypt woodlands (as opposed to forest) and heathlands interspersed with salt lakes, granite outcrops and in the north-west, banded ironstone formations ranges. It stretches from the edge of the Wheatbelt to the Eastern Goldfields and pastoral rangelands to the north, the inland deserts to the north-east (mulga dominated) and the treeless Nullarbor Plain to the east. It includes the higher rainfall coastal heath to the south east, and agricultural land to the west and south. It connects the south-west corner of Australia to the inland deserts.

The Wilderness Society published a very informative Report on this ecological treasure titled The Extraordinary Nature of the Great Western Woodlands and continue to work for its health and preservation.

More than 20% of Australia’s native plant species and 20% of Australia’s eucalyptus species exist here.

A community of animal species threatened elsewhere in Australia find a unique haven in the Great Western Woodland. These woodlands provide a refuge for many threatened wildlife species found nowhere else on the planet.

The Great Western Woodlands provides a home for numerous bird communities that have been in decline in many parts of Australia as a direct result of habitat destruction and fragmentation. It is home to 33% of WA’s birds and 18% of Australia’s birds according to a Birdlife Australia survey of the Woodlands’ bird population from 2012 to 2014.

The Great Western Woodlands is a largely intact ecosystem predominantly located on public lands. Poor fire management, feral animals, weed encroachment, and human activities including road construction and mining, are all threats to to the Woodlands.

“The Great Western Woodlands forms an area of global mega-diversity and supports some of the world’s most unique and vulnerable ecosystems.”

© Kim Epton 2015-2025
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Elachbutting Rock is the most impressive of all the huge granite outcrops in the Wheatbelt.

It is a large granite monolith that sits in the middle of a pristine nature reserve on the edge of the Wheatbelt, 70 kilometres north-east of Mukinbudin.

Naming of the Rock

The official name for this rock was provided by Surveyor H.S. King in 1889. Of aboriginal derivation its meaning is unknown although ‘that thing standing’ is a possibility. Explorer B.D. Clarkson named it Mount Bucket during his exploration of the area in 1864 – quite possibly a lazy interpretation of the aboriginal name for the feature. Clarkson’s name for the rock didn’t survive and the current difficult-to-pronounce name (one of several English spelling renderings of it) is totally non-marketable for a feature that should be better known.

Compare with Wave Rock – where the savvy marketers in the south-east wheatbelt town of Hyden rejigged the bland ‘Hyden Rock’ to a much more marketable description of what is now a great tourist attraction. And latterly, a crappy salt lake common to anywhere in the Wheatlbelt as ‘Lake Magic’. Maybe some local interest group around Mukinbudin or Westonia will recognise the tourist potential of Elachbutting and nearby granite outcrops, apply more marketable names, and reap the rewards of increased visitation to the area.

Montys Pass

One of the features of Elachbutting is Montys Pass, where a huge chunk of the rock’s outer layer has dislodged and slid down, leaving a 30 metre walk-through tunnel between the rock and the dislodged chunk.

At the end of this is Kings Cave, which in reality is a large tafone. Many granite outcrops (inselbergs or monadnocks) have tafoni.  Uluru and Kata Tjutu are well known examples.

Fifty metres to the south of Montys Pass is a wave formation that, while it does not quite rival Wave Rock, is still impressive.

The lookout on top of the rock is accessible by 4WD and provides fantastic views across farming land.

There are many great camping spots at the rock.

The reports of the various trips, tours and travels on the Adventures website have a lot of information about place names – their naming and features – toponymy. More information.

© Kim Epton 2017-2024
418 words, four photographs.

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Jimbine Rockhole is a rarely-visited, aboriginal water source in the Helena and Aurora Range. It is not listed in official records.

The following text and photographs have been extracted from Lesley Brooker’s excellent book, Explorers Routes Revisited – Clarkson Expedition 1864:

“According to Harper, the party crossed the range about 8 miles north-west of Mount Kennedy, and the continued on for another 5 or 6 miles. Therefore, I calculated that Jimbine must have been somewhere in the vicinity of 30^o17’S, 119^o35’E. Consequently Michael and I circumnavigated the Helena and Aurora Ranges to this approximate location on the northern side.  Finding nothing near the track we began a search on foot.  About 100 m east of the track, on scalling a low rise, we were astonished to find a clearing in the next valley that contained a natural well in the conglomerate sandstone, exactly as Harper had described it.

Jimbine is on an open gravelly hillside with outcropping laterite and fringed with open woodland. The rockhole itself measured from 2 to 3 metres in diameter and held water to the depth of at least 1 metre.  It was fed by a small eroding drainage line from a rise to the south.  The lower perimeter of the well was composed of reddish sandstone, with a relatively smooth, rounded rim, which was so regular that one could almost believe that it had been worked to give it that finish. Surrounding the well for at least 300 metres on all sides, the ground was covered with broken, worked flints.

There was no sign of European interference with the site and nobody had visited it recently. From the hillside beside the rockhole, the peak of Mount Kennedy (Bungalbin) could be seen to the east of south, 12 kilometres away.

Clarkson, Harper and Lukin would camp at Jimbine for the next three nights, while making daily forays to the surrounding areas and so I imagine that the rockhole may have deeper in their day, kept free of debris and sand by the local Balcup Aborigines.”

The name Jimbine is not in Geonoma, Landgate’s database of geographic names.  Most of the names used by Clarkson, Harper and Dempster were either changed or ignored by the authorities at the time.

Reference:
Brooker, Lesley, Explorers Routes Revisited – Clarkson Expedition 1864, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, WA, 2012, p60-61.

© Kim Epton 2017-2024
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