Mount Magnet

21 - 23 October 2022

The drive to Mount Magnet would take less than an hour from Cue so we took our time packing up and left around 10:00am. On the way we stopped to have a look at The Granites, about 10 kilometres north of our destination. There is a very basic map at the entrance from the highway, indicating some picnic areas and a walking track, but we could see a huge number of tracks going off in all directions. We found a picnic area to have a cuppa before having a bit of an explore. This should be a good birdy spot so a return in the afternoon or early morning was put on the agenda.

We arrived at the caravan park in Mount Magnet and had lunch before having a quick look around town. Once again a town with not much other than pub, supermarket and post office. There is evidence of lots of mining operations in the area and most of the traffic on the highway is enormous mining and supply trucks.

We decided to leave the visit to The Granites until the morning, so set the alarm for 5:00am. We had a good look at the map this time, and checked the area out on Google Maps in satellite view. It is an amazing landscape with a significant breakaway and lots of rocky outcrops and ridges. We stopped at a few spots, over about 3 hours, so Mick could photograph birds. He didn’t find the one he was after so we decided to spend an extra night in Mount Magnet and try again.

We went back to The Granites again in the afternoon and Mick ventured out on his own again in the early morning. He still didn’t find the bird he was after, but it wasn’t for want of trying.

The caravan park offers a third night free but we had to keep moving to fit in the rest of the stops we needed to make before our Perth booking. Because we only had another short distance to travel, we asked if we could stay until about 2:00pm. The friendly response was “no problem” – so we stayed until after lunch, then headed south.