Halfway House Israelite Bay, Western Australia, Australia
By Kybra on 14-May-06. Waypoint GCW18Q

We camped up at near Booanya Rocks last night. It was so quiet and the campfire took away some of the cold. Clear skies too!The Balladonia Road is an in maintained 4WD track. From the south there are no Road Closed signs. From the north there are a few. We stopped at the homestead but Roger didnt pop out, so we drove around to the campground and made a quick find here.Sandyofthesea and I are heading back to WA via Wudinna, Nullabour Cliffs and Esperance.Kybra, I found Halfway House today. Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache.

We came out for 2 days looking at the old homes Hint! ????

We travelled from Mt Raggad today and stopped here for lunch.The "ruins" are now privately owned and the building restored to a liveable standard. The owner Roger was home when we stopped and kindly gave us a tour of his home and shared some of the buildings history.

Great fine because we stay the night

Found

Came in from Condinup, track in good condition and cache is in good condition. Nice restoration

As I travelled west from Adelaide I noticed a couple more interesting-looking caches south of Balladonia - this one and ‘Ragged by name...’ further on. I was intending to travel the Norseman-Hyden Road, but as I’d already made a few detours to the coast I thought another would be fun. So down the Balladonia Road I turned.

The road was quite reasonable. I even passed another vehicle towing an off-road van.

WhenI arrived, I was surprised at the good condition of the house and surrounding buildings, etc. I had been expecting something much more run-down.

After checking the place out I headed over and found the cache. It was in good order and you could also see what is left the melted remains of the old cache at GZ.

Then it was off to Mount Ragged.

Thanks Kybra for the cache. A favourite point for brining me here.

Found ourselves out this way and called in to do the cache! Unfortunately a fire had been through in the last 12 months and all we found was the melted container and the spiral from the original log book! Replaced the cache with a container I had and a few pages of a note book but no pen, hopefully this will keep it going for awhile longer! In saying all that this is an awesome place and we loved poking around the restored ruins!

Nice quick find a thanks. Found this place once before through work but not caching then. Thanks for another visit

This cache was on the to do list for our holiday, so got in the 4WD and left for the day trip to Mt Ragged and Halfway House.
After climbing Mt Ragged it was really good to get back in the car to cool down a bit and get away from the annoying march flies.
When getting closer to the homestead some smoke started to build up, and at the 90 degree turn heading towards our destination we saw a sign that the road had been closed due to bushfires. We were a bit scared but kept going to grab this cache.
Fortunately the smoke did not get worse and we made a quick find at GZ. We looked around in the building and first were frightened by the huge number of flies living there.
Then quickly left the area towards Esperance hoping that no bush fires would block the road on the way back to camp. It was all good, a brilliant day that we will never forget.

Great hide. Met some lovely ppl taking photos at homestead. Told them about geocaching and that we are on route to Alice Springs mega event. Tftc

Found it. Coordinates were almost spot on.

Found it. March flies are friendly

TFTC

What a surprise to find this amazing little place in the middle of nowhere and what a privilege to be allowed to stay there. We cooked our tea in the old stove and enjoyed a glass of red or two by the fire. Some horses plus a friendly mouse dropped by to check on us. The highlight was definately using the much needed pulley and bucket shower system. We wouldn't have found this memorable homestead if it wasn't for the cache. Many thanks for bringing us here. A massive favourite point from the Crumps TFTC

Found with theteaguefamily today after a sleepover at the nearby homestead, which is pretty convenient when you get in late and don't have to set up tent etc. Very grateful to the caretakers for being allowed to use their facilities. After aiming for israelite bay and completely missing it (haha) we decided to do some bundu bashing up the coast, up to Balladonia and on the way to Mt ragged the corrugations on the road caused our trailer's suspension to fail. We made a Maori plan and crept out way 40kms to the homestead. We then found in the morning that our other spring had damaged itself so we had it out and bashed it out before putting it back on the trailer and on our way with a temporary fix to Mt ragged.
Cache was pretty easy to find, lid was loose and pen not working well, so we added another pen. Tftc

TFTC. Some huge spiders at the homestead!

What a little oasis in the middle of no where. Loved looking at the old buildings. tFTC

Great place to visit. Was a long trek back to Fisheries Road via the Balladonia Road.

Drove down from the Balladonia end and the corrugations were a bit hard on the teeth even though I'd let a lot of air out of the tyres. What a surprise the homestead was. With all the beds plus the neatly swept floors it's as though the owners have just gone down to the back paddock. I'm glad everyone respects this trust.
The cache was nicely hidden though broken as mentioned but I didn't have a suitable size replacement container (a small ammo box would be ideal). So it was out with the gaffer tape for a bit of a fix up job.
Heading south there'd been some rain and the road definitely required 4WD.
An absolutely delightful location and I'd like to return for a bit of a camp and to explore the tracks and lookouts shown on their mud map. Thanks Kybra for a top cache

Tftc

On our way down from Balladonia to Israelite Bay to start the next leg of our journey, we pulled up here to spend the night.
Very pleased to arrive and find we had the place to ourselves. It was the birthday of my mate who was with us, and he brought a bottle of Port to celebrate it.
Sitting around the roaring fire, with a full belly of food, sipping port was a very pleasant way to relax and forget the horrors of the road that brought us here (we didn’t know then that the rest of it would be even worse. We now officially hate rocks!!)

I had found the cache earlier in the evening with a nice stroll down to the soak under torchlight. Love the sound of healthy froge [^]. TN, left a calling card. Cheers .

Great hide for our family to find. On an awesome weekend. Left a new pen, but container is on last legs.

We found the cache - the container has a broken lid but everything is dry inside. Sorry we did not have a replacement container. The homestead was interesting and sympathetically restored. We particularly liked the outdoor oven. TFTC.

Camped the long weekend , with no cordinates and only my memory and a map i found it , took me all weekend..

Interesting - not many cache owners report FINDING their own cache, that must make the real Found count 12. Perhaps the Found log should be edited to an Owner Maintenance.

On our way out after a visit to cape Arid National Park as part of our 4 wheel drive/motor bike trip for a week. Very impressive homestead which made us reflect on the hardship endured by the early settlers. Could not imagine being here in January! We suggest the next person takes a pen as we could not get the one that was there to work. TFTC

How wonderfull to see these old homesteads looked after thanks for the cache. tn-ln.

This entry was edited by turps2 on Saturday, 24 September 2011 at 05:38:54 UTC.

Found no worries after coming up the Parmango Rd. This road is easy going and in good condition. The homestead is a little gem of a place. Camped the night near GZ so didn't actually stay inside. Last visitor to the cache left there tag, a 1.5m snake skin. The pen worked ok so I went over Kybra's log as well when we signed our find. Thx Kybra for an top cache and camping spot.

Finally got back for a visit.
Cache is holding up well to the weather, need to remember to take a new pen out old one didn't work

Nice break after the Balladonia Rd. Parmango Rd is a breeze! There was some water in the dam as well as some ducks. T LED light L dino. TFTC

Black_Swans found it today while on 4WD track from Cape Arid NP to Balladonia. Great homestead, TFTC!

OUT: Petunia the pink stuffed chook
IN: LED torch, plastic squirt gun part

Also grabbed urch's pathtag, thought it was like a regular trackable not a trade item...moved that on to another cache later on...

Cheers!

We have been here before, and planned to camp here the night when deciding to use the Esperance – Baladonia road. Previously it had been an easy drive, quite suited to a 2WD – this time it was a little different, after some heavy recent rains, and was definitely 4WD only in many flooded places, but even so would only rate it around a 3* terrain.

Had an enjoyable evening with a fire in the fire place, reading other camper’s logs (although the one about the friendly dugite gave us pause...), and the history of the property, along with a lovely Sauv Blanc, cheese and crackers! Cache easily found – TN, left my Pathtag. Thanks for putting a cache here, Kybra.

Wow, obviously people don't come here very often...
First we didn't want to come here either as we wanted to travel to Cape Arid NP along the Balladonia Rd (the guy at the Balladonia RH said the road conditions were a bit rough but O.K.). After getting bogged down several times only 50 k before the Fisheries Rd we went back because it was too tough.
So we ended on the Parmango Road which was heaven and felt like a freeway to us.
At least the detour and missing Cape Arid NP brought us to this beautiful place which is really worth visiting!

what a fabulous spot. Found this one with friends whilst travelling the tracks less travelled Just loved the history. Left Molly Popple and Scout badge Thanks forthe hunt to a beaut spot



[This entry was edited by konggirls on Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 5:01:09 AM.]

FTF! Wow, this is my very first FTF! I was driving back to Perth from Mt Isa and took the shortcut track from Balladonia to Esperance along Parmango Road. It's a gravel track but wasn't so bad. I saw this cache pop up on OziExplorer so I dropped in to find it. I'm glad I did as the old buildings of Deralinya are great, and well preserved too. I enjoyed looking around, but the March flies were bad! Thanks for bringing me to an interesting spot Kybra. I would have just driven by on the other road otherwise. Good co-ordinates, so an easy find. I must say the 2/5 rating though seems excessive. Why is that? TN-LN-SL. Thanks for the hunt Kybra.

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