Drive Darling Scarp | Adventures

The ‘Holiday Hiatus’ (xmas to New Year 2020) is an ideal time to get away. Our version of ‘Romjul’ provided time for an awesome 4WD Road Trip on the southern part of Drive Darling Scarp.

The plan was to drive south from Karragullen to Pemberton, following the Darling Scarp as closely as we could, checking out tracks as we went and confirming their accessibility. As the Trip progressed we were able to keep fairly close to the plan.

Scarp Road

We turned off the Brookton Highway onto Kinsella Road, a gravel road in reasonable condition that connects with Albany Highway. It passes through the Monadnocks Conservation Park (not much different from a National Park). Through Jarrahdale, onto Scarp Road and into Serpentine National Park. Past North Dandalup Dam and onto Del Park Road to again pick up Scarp Road.

Forty metres onto Scarp Road we saw this sign.

: A bureaucratic mistake.

Although the road looked well used we respected the prohibition, turned around and resumed our journey along Del Park Road before taking a track I had used numerous times previously that took us into Marrinup. From there we continued to Scarp Pool and then the underwhelming Scarp Lookout.

Scarp Pool

: Scarp Pool

: Paddlers at Scarp Pool.

: Below Scarp Pool.

Leaving Scarp Pool we headed west on Pinjarra-Williams Road, for Cookernup. As we approached Scarp Road’s intersection with Pinjarra-Williams Road I decided to check it out. There is no Water Corporation ‘No Entry’ sign here.

Oakley Dam

Seven kilometres along Scarp Road is the turnoff to Oakley Dam. This is a hidden gem. A great, un-advertised swimming hole. The associated Lookout is difficult but not impossible to access from the dam – it would seem that the intention is to force access via a lengthy walk on the opposite side of the car park – but it does provide great views over the coastal plain and the Alcoa Refinery.

: Scott at Oakley Dam.

: Oakley Dam Picnic Area

: Pool at Oakley Dam.

: View from the Lookout.

: Alcoa Refinery from the Lookout.

Alumina Conveyor

We continued north along Scarp Road, crossed Alcoa’s conveyor belt and eventually came to point where we had turned around a couple hours earlier.

: Scarp Road goes over the bauxite conveyor.

There is no matching sign at the Pinjarra Williams Rd end of Scarp Road nor anywhere along it. There are numerous signs in the intervening 14 kilometres between those two points warning that certain activities such as boating, camping, fishing, and marroning, are not permitted but nothing about ‘No Entry’. A bureaucratic bungle.

From the amount of traffic that clearly uses the road it would seem that the reasonably-difficult-to-see sign is largely ignored.

Skip Murray River Fireline

The ‘official’ Drive Darling Scarp route is along Murray River Fireline that, as the name suggests, follows the Murray River. From Driver Road the route is west to Hoffmans Mill. We had done this route a few weeks previously so we decided to instead take the bitumen to Cookernup on the South Western Highway and then rejoin the Drive Darling Scarp route at Logue Brook.

: Holidaymakers at Logue Brook.

Stirling Dam

Leaving Logue Brook we headed to Stirling Dam, not confident that we could get past this imposing construction without a lengthy detour. And so it was.

: Stirling Dam

: The concept of degrees versus percentage to describe a slope is interesting, even arcane. And worthwhile a search.

The information sign displays the grade of the incline/decline as a percentage rather than in degrees. Grade and slope are the same, although usually the grade of a road is measured in percentage, depending on the agency involved and the jurisdiction.

Brunswick Hills

Our detour took us over the Worsley conveyor a couple of times. We eventually got to Big Tree Road and found an acceptable campsite in the Brunswick Hills.

: Scott’s camp

: Kim’s camp

: Aaron’s camp

The Brunswick Hills 4WD tracks have a fearsome reputation. Our recce was more about linking features, attractions and four wheel driving tracks rather than actually doing the 4WD challenges so we tried out only a couple of tracks.

: Scott takes his Patrol through a creek bed to get out of camp.

: Brunswick River

: Track off Big Tree Road.

Time to head south along the Darling Scarp again.

: Beela Road

: Leaving the Brunswick Hills area on Beela Road near Matilda River.

Mount Lennard

Beela Road took us out of the Brunswick Hills and on to the Lennard Track. As with the Murray River Fireline, we had done this track only a few weeks previously so we elected to take the scenic route through the beautiful Ferguson Valley, up Mount Lennard and down Lennard Road (rather than Lennard Track).

: Television mast at Pile/River Road.

One of WA’s Great Drives

We continued south through Kirup and pushed through an interesting grove of banksias to the Balingup-Nannup Road. – one of WA’s great drives. The 41 kilometres of bitumen between Balingup and Nannup has 90 bends, great country scenery and closely follows the Blackwood River. Though Nannup is a few kilometres off the line of the Darling Scarp, this drive makes the diversion worthwhile.

We headed south-east out of Nannup on an old stock route.

South-East of Nannup

: The track was a bit overgrown.

: There is a track there some where.

: Following an old overgrown track.

: We decided it was too tight and made our way to more open roads

Donnelly River

Near Donnelly River we were looking for a way south when our way was blocked by the most serious road block I have ever encountered.

: No mistaking the intention to block the track.

: Rocks blocking the track.

: Track closed.

The tracks we were wanting to follow to stay close to the Darling Scarp were all blocked or in DRAs (Disease Restricted Areas) so we had to veer further east towards Donnelly River.

: Karri tree lined track near Donnelly River.

We found a secluded campsite off Gordon Road.

: Camp Sunday night.

Greens Island

The southward push continued. We determined to locate Greens Island Campground.

: Young karri trees (Eucalyptus diversicolor) with their distinctive understorey at our camp.

Greens Island is a large, open style DPaW Campground located on a bend in the Donnelly River that gives the impression that it is an island.

: These markers are seen throughout the forest and are used to indicate where hand distribution of 1080 baits (as opposed to aerial baiting) starts and stops.

Palings Road

We crossed the Donnelly River on Palings Road and two kilometres further east turned south onto an overgrown track that at one time was a well used road. It was incongruous to see normal road signs hidden by vegetation overgrowth.

: It was a tight fit.

We were able to squeeze past the first log, however, the second completely blocked the track.

: Scott puts strap around log.

: Pulled the log off the track

: Scott leveraged the log right off the track.

Our shortcut took us out to Waistcoat Road and, though our intended direction was to the right, we shot up the road (left) to Palings Road to confirm that it intersected with Waistcoat, should future travellers on this Road Trip decide not to take this shortcut.

: Logging karri on Court Road.

Duch Fonti Road

We turned off Court Road looking for some challenging tracks – and succeeded.

: Overgrown Duch Fonti Road.

: Scott moved the first log.

: And the second log.

: The obstacle was removed with a handsaw.

Karri Forest Explorer

However, it was not too far along the track before a large log, immovable with our resources, blocked our progress. We moved west to Chainman Road where we encountered numerous more obstacles before coming out onto Stony Crossing Road, part of the Karri Forest Explorer route.

: We followed the Karri Forest Explorer but in reverse.

: Big Karri

: Warren River cedar occurs in the south west corner of western Australia.

: Warren River cedar or juniper myrtle (Taxandria juniperina)

The Karri Forest Explorer route took us in to Pemberton. Refuel, revictual.

Gloucester Tree

After a coffee we headed out to the Gloucester Tree.

: Gloucester Tree

: Climbers

: Fire lookout at the top of the tree.

We wanted to find another track into Pemberton that connected with the Karri Forest Explorer at a different location to that which we connected earlier in the day, so we headed out on that Route – this time in the ‘normal’ direction. Where the Karri Forest Explorer turned left after Giblett picnic area we turned right on to Beedelup Road.

Beedelup Road

We were hoping that this open track would provide a ‘non-scratchy’ option for travellers on the Drive Darling Scarp Road Trip. All looked good for a kilometre or so at which point we came across a few small logs.

: Scott attaches a strap to log at first obstacle.

: Log removed at first blockage.

A little bit further along two substantial logs blocked the track. They will be dealt with on a future Trip. We found where previous travellers had made a way round the obstacle and continued on – for 900 metres.

: Another serious entanglement blocking the track.

: It looked worse than it was.

: Another log dragged away.

: Kept working away at it.

: Seven logs were dragged out of the entanglement and positioned on the edge of the track.

It took us an hour to clear a path through the log jam. We pushed on towards Willow Springs campground

Along the way we diverted down a track off Andrew Road that should have saved us a few kilometres, however, it was very overgrown and, ultimately, our forward progress was blocked at a bridge that had been modified so only bikes could get across. Back the way we had come. McNab Road took us to Austin Road (relief) which took us to Willow Springs, arriving about 6.00 p.m.

We spent the evening chatting with a couple of fellow travellers, one of whom was walking the Bibbulman Track.

To Nannup

The intention was to find tracks that headed more directly back towards Nannup but all tracks off Austin Road were closed under DRA regulations.

: An historically significant site along Austin Road – believed to be the grave of a horse. The reference number on the marker relates to a database maintained by the Department of Parks and Wildlife.

We decided to head into Nannup, refuel, have a coffee and then follow the Blackwood River along Denny Road through to Warner Glen before heading to Margaret River.

Scott had to meet with Tony by about 1.00 p.m.

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