February 2-3, 2024
Cave Hill is another large rock formation in the Great Western Woodlands and has three campgrounds, curiously two are free and one is chargeable, all have a toilet and tables.
From the promotional webpage:
“One of the largest and highest granite outcrops in the region, Cave Hill provides an area to explore ancient cave formations and pioneering ingenuity with the historic woodline dams on the outcrop.”
The Woodline was the railway system that was constantly relocated carrying the cut timber to power the Goldfields’ ever-expanding gold mining operations, timber being used for the steam boilers to run the headframe winders, and as mine props. An enormous area was totally cleared of trees for 65 years, only ending in the 1960s but demand had dropped in the early 50s as diesel power came on board. This is a fascinating look at the process which employed 1500 at its peak https://www.adventures.net.au/information/woodlines
We stayed here for 2 nights as the days were still very hot and walking in the morning was the only wise choice. There is a walk trail here around the 3 dams at the Western end, marked with old timber posts, and a walk to the Caves at the other end, however, there is no plotted trail across the rock so we partly used a walk placed on All Trails. The first day we walked the dams loop:
The next morning we walked to the Caves and over the summit back to the 3 dams end:
