REMOTE SOLO CAMPING - WA River to Beach DREAM trip! 350,000 acre Station all to myself - AuSolo

g'day folks graham here i'd like to welcome you to osolo a production 100 created by me i research the show myself i shoot the show solo i present the show and i edit the show with no outside input and yes i fly the drone solo as well on this episode we're in wa's midwest we're following the mighty murchison river from deep inland out to the indian ocean through some of the most spectacular outback country you'll see anywhere so get comfortable and come along for the ride on this episode of ol solo [Music] i tell you what if there is anything that smells better than campfire smoke and bacon first thing in the morning if they could put that in a bottle i'd wear it as a cologne now i'm about 700 clicks north of perth right now this is the murchison region of western australia currently i'm sitting on murchison house station that body of water down there that is none other than the murchison river yeah i know what you're thinking they didn't get too descriptive with the names back in the day and emergency is going to pop up quite a bit over the next couple of days right now i'm on the far eastern end of the property out that way is gorge country absolutely stunning but i'm going to be heading west over the next couple of days through the station to pop me out down on the coast this station is unique it's got river frontage and coast frontage it's open to the public at certain times of the year the cooler months but due to the covert crisis the owners have decided to keep it closed for the foreseeable future i've known them for a long time i got on the horn gave them a call they said yeah please come on in you've got the entire station to yourself couldn't be more stoked for two reasons firstly it means i get to show you folks one of the most beautiful outback stations you'll find anywhere in australia it truly is stunning but probably the better reason there are some stories that come off murchison house station that if you didn't know that you could look them up yourself on the internet and get verification you'd swear to god i was making them up they are that fanciful i'm talking things like indian princes plane crashes boxes full of hidden guns in the hills yeah this place has seen it all so i'm stoked to be able to spend a couple of days winding my way down to the coast but now though i've got a very pressing engagement that i must take care of the bacon and egg sandwich please excuse me [Music] little bit too much chili sauce on the old bacon and egg roll it's one way to wake up in the morning all right how did the property come to be a station how did this parcel of land come to be the station it is today to explain that we've got to go back in time a little bit around about 1840 three brothers doing a bit of work around the perth area the south west area one in particular charles von bra now if you've been around today i guarantee you he would have been a magician you can't not be a magician with a name like charles von bibra but anyway charles lobbed into the swan colony perth round about that 1840 mark and did a few bits and pieces in the area he went down south for a while and he held a large past release down there but one thing i really like about old charles he didn't muck around too much these station tracks man they can be hard to follow you just don't quite know where you are from time to time i don't under my map so you've got to sort of a good clean sense of direction one thing i love about old charlie von bibra as soon as he got to perth he took over the pub he took over the licensee of the pub the royal hotel in perth good man he knew what was up now he must have drunk his feel there because by about 1858 or there abouts he decided to track north bumped into the banks down here somewhere the murchison river now he must have really liked it because from all the reading i've done from 1958 till about 1960 he camped on the backs of the merchants and just camp there imagine that you go for a drive one day you find somewhere you like two years later you decide you'll do something so in 1860 he finally pulls his finger out had enough of camp and decides he's going to build a house now believe it or not that house is still standing today and is in use by the current owners of the station murchison house itself thus the station was born more or less the primary reason for von bibra old charlie von bibra there's a bit of a bumpy bit up through here let's get into this the primary reason for charlie von briber to set this entire station up was he was breeding stud arabian horses for the british army in india which believe it or not back in the day was the number one export coming out of the colonies so he made a bit of cash doing that he got sick of the place after a few years and decided to move on he actually moved on up towards shark bay remember that shark bay and remember von bibra because he's going to pop back up in future episodes but for now he's left the property and it's gone on to other people there were a number of different owners over the years the properties had quite a few different owners one in particular really put this station on the world map for a short period of time and i'll introduce you to that owner a little bit further down the track holy heck she is soft i think i need to knock some pressure out of these tyres no no no i've got to knock some air out of these tyres that is soft holy heck this stuff here i don't know it's like look at look how soft it is it's like some sort of river sand but going up a hill i think what happens out here is you get those prevailing winds to come on because we're quite high up here for out here and i think you get those prevailing winds look i'm sinking into the sand here and it blows it blows this sand back onto the track these tracks don't get used they might only get used once or twice a year and so it blows this river sand it's really coarse soft river sand into the tire tracks and you've just got to go down quite low on your tire pressures in order to get up here another thing too these station tracks are used by obviously the station owners out here and i don't want to be the one that cuts them up out here so i'm going to let these i let my tires down before i got in i think i'm at about 22 but i'm gonna go down to 16 now and see if that makes a big difference trying to get up here i didn't think i'd have to do this to be honest all right we are down to 16 psi so here we go it's not even a steep hill it's just that sand unbelievably soft see what a difference that makes a all right here we go oh instantly significantly better instantly it's just coming back down to grab the camera and i noticed something i wanted to give you a look at this have a look at this this is a really good illustration of just how well something as simple as tire pressures work have a look at the furrows that have been left behind by my tyres when my tyres were pumped up look how deep they are and then you can see just up here this is where i was walking back and forth in front of the vehicle and now have a look at how shallow the wheel tracks are you can almost see the vehicle floating over the top of the sand tire pressures there everything and don't forget your tripod tripods are handy too [Music] ah yep yep yeah yeah oh black swan down there this is what i've been looking for huh have a go this will you what a spot absolutely stunning get out and take a closer look [Music] all right this big body of water right here is called alley pool and just over there big body of water as well called bully pool now these two pools are some of the biggest permanent sources of water on the murchison this side of the homestead before you get right back up into the gorge country up there of course those gorges so steep any rainfall you get back up that way it pulls very easily but here where it's so flat unusual to get these big big bodies of water now bully pool just over there super significant because the then station owner as i've said before there's been a number of station owners over the years andrew ogilvy owned the station here from 1855 until 1906 when tragically tragically he was swimming in bully pool on a hot day and he drowned passing away in 1906 so despite these two spots being absolutely cracking campsites i've always found them to be just a little bit spooky especially at night when the wind is going through these salmon gums could be just me though i might be just being a bit of a wars [Music] ah just pulled up here for lunch down by the river a bloody emu stuck in the mud over here the poor bugger he's he's on his last legs he's just about dead but even if i could get him out which i'm not going to be able to do he wouldn't make it he's absolutely he's absolutely knackered so oh man i bloody hate having to do this but i'm gonna have to i have to put him out of his misery i'm not gonna show you that oh the poor bugger all right let's just get this done ah i hate having to do that i thought i could dig him out but uh when i got sort of halfway down he started to move i thought yeah yeah we're gonna get him out but he was too weak he couldn't even couldn't even roll over he was knackered and he busted his own leg trying to get out his hip was all his hip was all displaced so it's nature i i don't like doing it but i wasn't going to leave him there to suffer either what a horrible way to go [Music] oh man you know i'm not a religious bloke or a superstitious kind of bloke in any way shape or form but i've been looking for somewhere to pull over for lunch literally for the last two hours and there was nothing about this spot i just thought to myself that'll do i'll just pull in there looks good enough and there happened to be in the middle of nowhere of all the spots i could have pulled over an emu that needed help needed pudding out of its misery now it's not the first time that's happened to me once before i was out riding my motorbike and for middle of nowhere again and for absolutely no reason no reason at all i just stopped and turned off my bike and took my helmet off and i could hear a crow just this weird it was making a really weird noise very very close to me this crow just off the side of the track there was a crow and he was stuck in a piece of cloth like a uh the fibers of the cloth had wrapped around one of his legs it was a big old piece of cloth like a towel and he just couldn't he couldn't fly i couldn't get away from it and he was super calm i just went up to him and i had a office cut the towel off him let him go and he flew off but why in the middle of nowhere did i happen to just stop my motorbike and take my helmet off just then why did i just choose there to stop and have lunch anyway glad i did don't like doing that but the poor thing well they ain't suffering anymore so that's good all right let's put that behind me let's get going [Music] somewhere up in here one of these overhanging cliff faces something pretty interesting i want to try and show you yeah i reckon up in there or it can ride up in there there'll be one okay get a load of these curious bits of kit these are actually bird's nests they're made by the swallow incredible what they do fly down to the creek they get a small little pallet of mud in their beak fly all the way back here and somehow create these little hollowed out chambers underneath these rocky outcrops you often find whole bunches of them together really really incredible once when i was young i found a bunch in a cave just like this and i was doing this looking at them trying to see what was going on figure out what they were bloody swallow come shooting out of there nearly hit me in the head scared the living daylights out of me even to this day oh i don't like doing that it gives me the ear it's well i guess it's time for an explanation if you haven't bumped into oz solo before on youtube you're probably wondering what the hell's this black daughter's bumbling around in the bush on his own okay oh solo 100 done by me i research it i shoot it i present it i edit it and i upload it i get no help from anyone else it's kind of my thing it's my project and it's my point of difference so as i always say if the camera works just a little bit shaky if the sound is just slightly off sorry doing it all myself having a crack and loving it so of course if you're a regular old solo you'll know exactly what this is all about but if you're new well sit down get yourself comfy and enjoy the ride because i know i'm gonna i reckon you'd all be pretty familiar with the d-max and some of the crazy places we've taken this bad boy over the years all around australia i was stoked when we decided to put it on a truck and ship it across to western australia so that i could use it over here and put it to work in what i consider to be its absolute element these outback touring tracks are exactly what this vehicle has been almost 100 percent designed for yes it can tackle the hard stuff and to its credit keeps up pretty darn well but it's out here that i reckon it just does such an amazing job the engine is designed for it just sips away at the fuel it's comfortable it's reliable more to the point and i'll tell you i'm thoroughly enjoying doing something a bit different in the vehicle that i've been pushing so damn hard on tracks that woohoo i'll tell you how to put the wind up me for several years to be out here doing this the old girl and i absolutely loving it oh yeah i've got a real steep little jump up here this is that plateau country here all limestone boulders holy heck [Music] i might need a bit more momentum for that not gonna need another gold that's unbelievable that's really slippery all right bit more dedication this time there's a big boulder in the way big boulder in the way getting into it [Music] yeah holy egg that was a bit of a surprise i didn't kind of expect that oh but the view have a go at the view [Music] all right that little jump up i just did has now put me right back up on top of the plateau i'm actually quite high up in elevation right now i'm going to use this high speed management access track here this is what the uh the owners and the workers on the station use to get right down the far end of the property going to use this to take me back all the way back down to the river now so fourth gear bit of country western get back to the river in no time [Music] i love this spot here ah late afternoon i'm gonna jump out soak it up have a look at that view look at it ah look at that will ya check this place out this right here is the highest part of the entire station and the views from up here are nothing less than spectacular of course we've got station country down here then beyond it as far as the eye can see absolute virgin wilderness down there you can see the sea cliffs and the ocean the little town of cal barry you can't see it but just down there about half an hour away oh i can almost hear it that's the sound of me cracking a beer at my campsite down by the river i better get going oh one last look have a look at that absolutely bloody stunning [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh it's just the slightest amount of rain around this morning which is unusual for this time of year but i'm guaranteeing she'll clear up and it'll be hot by lunchtime i cannot tell you just how much of a difference having this canopy has made to the ability for me to live out of the back of the d-max it is absolutely unreal now i wanted to show you how i've got it set up and a few little tips and tricks that i'm using this is the passenger side obviously under the awning here which is good because it's raining at the moment passenger side for me is the side i live out of so this is where i do my cooking my preparation et cetera et cetera of course i've got the old fridge on the fridge slide down here now with the fridge slide there's always a bit of space i use it to put salt and pepper some herbs and spices of course you never go at the bush without your curry powder do you got to have curry powder up the top here on this frame that's built around the clear view frame that's built around the fridge i've mounted my or a store sorry my gas cooker now i've been lucky enough to be able to cook on the campfire while i'm at here so i haven't needed that of course you've got to have tunes portable radio portable speaker goes up the top there a little bit of country a little western have a look at this for an idea little bag i got here just zip tied up on one of these braces and in that i keep my matches and lighter so i know exactly where they are now you're wondering how do you get it open it's real simple you just go like that get your matches out put them back in again and you just slide them out of the way when you don't need it so if you need to bring the fridge out go that way yeah pretty clever aren't i coffee coffee making stuff up here of course we've got um all sorts of bits and pieces up on this shelf i've actually got my pots and pans and plates up in there plenty of room down the side for storage and stuff elf oil for those massive fish that i'm going to catch maybe have a look at this there's something i want to show you in here i've got all my food i've got enough food in there uh in terms of canned food and some other bits and pieces for about three weeks before i need to restock that's fantastic obviously this work table is cool but check this out this right here is one of the nebo flashlights this is the slide king it's an absolute beauty it's got it's rechargeable usb rechargeable but it's got a magnetic base now check this out for cool oh that's the other thing i like about this i'm storing my stubby holders up on there too so don't lose them you put your you put your torch up on top of there and then when i'm working on here pull that out i've got light so i can see what i'm doing here so this is essentially the living area now what i just want to show you is how i've got the trundle tray set up as well now look at this bad boy down here i've never actually owned a trundle tray before on any of my vehicles so i was pretty stoked to get this and be able to kit it out with everything i need so of course i've got a full tool kit down here washing up gear down there set of spanners down there i've got all sorts of bits and pieces for the truck i'm talking things like fencing wire you always you're going to need fencing water at some stage you know spare lubricants things there's some castor oil brake fluid you're always going to need that of course don't go anywhere without your fire extinguisher you're going to need that there's so much room in here if anything goes wrong you always need a hammer i'm in love with this thing decked out the way i like it but what's so important is that this thing is dust and waterproof um i wouldn't be keeping any of this stuff in here fencing my fire extinguisher wouldn't be keeping all my tools in here if it let water in but we've seen that in tasmania when it got completely dunked she was fine and although it's raining today i reckon we'll be good so yeah basics are this canopy has truly changed the way i operate out of the d-max loving it now time for a coffee i reckon that is a good hot cup of coffee as i predicted the rain has stopped the sun is trying to come out i reckon it's going to be an absolutely beautiful day now you remember yesterday i mentioned an indian prince well what the heck is going on there the year is 1972 and his name is mr jar it's actually got a far longer name than that but i can't pronounce most of the words he's a ridgy ditch prince he's got all the power in the world he's got all the money in the world he's not like the singer you know the one that wore makeup and sang about corvette's not that kind of prince a ridgy ditch prince 1972 he's fallen in love with the place decided to move over here and actually run it someone who didn't fall in love with it was his wife she said nah jar mate i'm not moving out to australia and living on a sheep station it's not gonna happen buddy she probably didn't say it like that because she was an indian princess but she would have said something very similar unfortunately that means they've broken up he's come out here on his own and he's run the place for quite some time he's met a girl in perth she actually passed away in some pretty average circumstances we won't go into that but for a number of years he's run this place on his own like i mean truly run it as a sheep station he goes into town every now and again the locals buy him a beer he's got a bit of an aussie accent after being out here for a while i mean i'm talking the 1970s a small country town it was mind-blowing that royalty was living on the station the biggest station just outside of town he started to get a little bit lonely as you would decided he wouldn't mind having some company out here so he made it be known that he was searching for a wife now he's a pretty dapper looking bloke he's got a fair bit of cash behind him some nice silk threads and of course he's a bloody prince so as you can imagine there were quite a few knocks on the old station door if you know what i'm getting at now he is quoted to have said and i love this he's quoted to have said although a lot of those ladies are absolutely lovely none of them strike me as the sort of lady who would open a station gate for me anyway he did actually find a young lady and he did quite well for himself she was a miss beauty pageant winner they fell in love they got married and she frothed on the station as much as him and yep she didn't mind opening station gates so for a long period of time the station was actually owned by royalty who worked the station themselves fantastic story i'll tell you what jar mate if i ever make it to india i'll buy you a beer buddy here's to you well i tell you what i slept i don't know what it is you put me under canvas and i just sleep so darn well put me in a five or six star hotel i you know with the big fluffy sheets and the and the feather beds and stuff i wouldn't sleep anywhere near as well put me in a swag next just a crackle of the fire as well just as you're going off to sleep oh man all right river on me left let's keep going we got a big day today all righty i'm just going to make a quick detour this spot's real special the number of times i've popped out here late in the afternoon coming back from a bit of a hunt just to come out here and have a cold beer on sunset i'm not going to explain why i'm going to let the next bit of footage do all the talking this will do right about here but it's here that i've got to swap horsepower for leg power check this out [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well i'll tell you why that is significantly steeper and higher than it looks on camera and i reckon that if i was the lead guitarist in a rock band that point up there would be the perfect place to do a rock and lead solo some flames somewhere hair in the wind unfortunately i'm not in a rock band i can't play guitar to save my life and well my days are having hair blown in the wind well and truly bloody over let me tell you but that that's a spectacular view the station again made news tragically this time in 1921 you see it was december and australia's first air mail service was just starting up this was a big deal in the time i mean planes had only just been around for war purposes etc never had they been used for something as significant as delivering the mail it was cutting down the delivery of envelopes and packages by several months down to a couple of days perth to derby was the suggested route on the inaugural day they decided to make a big deal of it as a result of which they sent three planes now one of the planes on route to derby developed engine problems and had to land here at the station second plane landed nearby and the third plane began circling the station getting ready to land and join his mates inexplicably the plane just nose dives boom according to flames there was nothing that could be done the pilot and the mechanic on board were killed instantly they were pulled from the wreckage they were dressed in crisp white shirts given to the bodies by the then station owner wrapped in white cotton and buried here on the station together and it's here that they stay in a small graveyard just to the other side of the station homestead 1921 yet again the station makes news have a go at the erosion there that's incredible you know when they do get rain out here it just screams off these rocky hills these rocky escarpments and because it's so sandy down through here nothing to hold that together and so you just get these massive canyons through look at the size of that one absolutely incredible amount of erosion that means sometimes crossing over them can be a little bit tricky but that one there no drama at all perhaps the most recent story that got tongues wagon and imaginations fired up to come off the station happened only a couple of years ago i said before the station opens up every now and again for tourists to come in and camp generally only during the winter months when it's a lot cooler there was a young family out here they had a couple of kids they were camped down by the river and they came up exploring for the day young kids jumped out of the car as young blokes do up into the hills here foraging around and they found in the nook of the rocks an old box pretty unremarkable they kind of moved a few rocks out of the way they slid it down had a lock on it the lock basically broke off when they touched it they opened it up and inside was a submachine gun and a sawed-off shotgun both in working condition now the submachine gun it's been dated to go back to 1917 it was actually used in world war one and world war ii the sawn off shotgun on the other hand about 30 years old but the serial number has been scratched off so there's no way of tracing where it came from or what it was used for nobody knows why the guns are there nobody knows how the guns got there and of course nobody knows who put them there no one's come forward the guns have since been handed over to the police i think though station owner callum sums up the find perfectly he said he'd love to see the guns rendered inoperable and put back on display in the homestead so that it showcases just another chapter in the station's rich and colorful history however he is the first person to admit that a sawn off shotgun does not exactly have noble origins i don't know what went on i'll leave it up to your imagination [Music] some real soft sandy sections through here i've got to tell you you know one thing i do love about this particular station i haven't seen on other stations around australia is the variety of terrains you know starting right out the east in that sort of rocky really scrubby environment where you're dealing with really soft river sand on the tracks right the way through as you get closer to the coast it turns into rocks and out the back right up to the north you get that shady limestone stuff on the breakaway country i love that because it's that variety in terrain that keeps the place really interesting for me of course one thing you do have to be very careful of out here in station country is punctures there's old bits of metal everywhere the rocks are super sharp out here too and of course have a look at these old trees out here those bad boys have been in the sun for hundreds of years and when they break off fall on the ground the stakes that they leave behind man they'll go through a tyre without even flinching that's why coming out here i you probably have noticed have swapped to the set of bridgestone jeweler ats the primary reason for that well there's two primary reasons for that firstly they are brilliant off-road but also awesome on the blacktop because i've had to do 700 kilometres of blacktop to get up to here they're so quiet so comfortable but secondly they offer awesome puncture resistance and up here on this variety of terrain with all these sharp things sticking out i can't afford to get punches up here so that's why i've swapped over and are running those jeweler ats up here on this station well you can really see that river starting to fatten up now because we're getting down close to the mouth of the river down here she's tidal down here this is salt water down here at the moment i must say she's looking pretty darn [Music] good [Music] that big bend in the river you can see that's the last we're gonna see that river for a bit now we're about to head towards the coast a bit the reason i'm doing that will become very clear very soon [Music] [Music] well think you'll agree that is one heck of a view considering we started all the way out east at scrubby country where the river was nothing more than a trickle we followed it west yet slowly gotten fatter and wider it's become tidal and now the mouth the river is just down there and that my friends is the mighty indian ocean also down there is tonight's camp for me tomorrow gonna pack up i'm gonna track back out of here onto the blacktop and then several hours north to a location that couldn't be any more different than this one here but with one very significant link i'll tell you about that another day for now i'm heading down there getting the fishing rods out and i'll catch you folks next time take care hey let's get into it [Music] seat belts are tricky difficult things seat belts you know i'm not a religious bloke or a superstitious bloke in any way shape or form i can't get a seatbelt to work they can i right third time's at you but now though i've got a very pressing engagement that i must take care of the bacon and egg sandwich please excuse me not really i've already eaten it got a piece of muesli bar on my teeth i slept like i no well like what what sleeves whoopsie daisy

Channel: 4WD 24-7

Views: 320,767

Rating: 4.9436774 out of 5

Keywords: 4wd, action, 4x4, offroad, outdoors, travel, overlanding, toyota, nissan, hilux, patrol, landcruiser, adventure, camping, fishing, diesel, petrol, surf, shaun whale, graham cahill, australia, dirty 30, shorty, gq, gu, 80 series, 40 series, 60 series, 79 series, troopy, 4wd action, 4wd 247, 4wd 24/7

Id: IfqR5Rwk9MQ

Length: 41min 24sec (2484 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020