Millstream - Chichester

We said a fond farewell to our talkative pair of corellas at Whim Creek over breakfast.  We never did find out who Harold and Margaret were, or why she might be going to the shops, and it was always hello and never goodbye, so I think there were in denial.

Now I really had no idea what to expect from Millstream Chichester National Park. With a name like that you can easily imagine a delightful English scene. Nup, nothing like that. The Chichester range is a rock farm, no denying it. Elliot spent a good deal of the early part of our holiday on the rough roads asking if it was “anything like the road to Birdsville”, and our answer was always no. However, this came close. Not the road, because it was generally quite good, but the surrounding landscape, with its piles of small, sharp rocks, was in some sense reminiscent of the channel country.

The Python Pool was on our list of must sees. I can imagine it could be quite lovely when the water was flowing, but not today. About as exciting as you’d expect from a stagnant pool with a blue-green algae warning. The deep cleft in the overhanging rock filled with a waterfall, matched to a water level indicated by the stain on the rock, would have been quite exquisite, but alas, not for us.

We chose not to undertake the 16km cameleers trail to Mt Herbert across that barren wilderness, electing to drive and walk the 300m to the top instead. Quite  a view, but of a completely deserted landscape. Not much to detain us there, so we made good progress, and it was off to the Millstream section for lunch at Deep Reach.

Quite a contrast. This national park grew from the amalgamation of two separate regions. Millstream gained its name from the first European explorer describing the permanent water flowing from a spring as being “suitable for supporting a large mill”. It was quite idyllic, especially compared to the surrounding area, and within three years sheep were running on the Millstream property. Peaking early at 55000 head and a shearing shed of 12 stands, it soon became apparent that the stocking rates were completely unsustainable. The fortunes waxed and waned for 100 years, and by the 1960s, stock had reduced to around 6000 sheep and a few cattle, before the property was resumed to protect the spring, which would be used to feed the burgeoning town of Karratha.

The Millstream homestead has been preserved as a visitor centre, and the grounds, developed by the many owners over the years, including vegetable garden, tennis court, rice and cotton plantation, bananas, washhouse in the river, left with interpretive signage to understand how the landscape was changed. The most obvious legacy of this was the fine stand of date palms, now an exotic pest weed, spreading out from the riverbed.

It was our intention to camp on the Fortescue River in the national park, but unfortunately there were too many ahead of us, and the house full sign was up. Rather than going back to the more desolate site with vacancies, we satisfied ourselves with a refreshing swim in the river, and headed for Point Samson.

On the way we travelled down the rail line from Tom Price to Karratha, formerly known as the Hamersley Iron Railway, but now apparently part of Rio Tinto’s Pilbara Iron operation. In a previous life I worked on signalling equipment for this line, and so I mused that maybe inside this signalling box I was standing beside, was some gear that I had at one stage had on my bench. That was probably 15 or more years ago now though.

Point Samson came recommended to us by a fellow traveller. I hope it is good, because so far we have only seen the caravan park staffed and occupied by grumpy grey nomads. I’m sure in daylight, with this expensive caravan park behind us it will improve.