Goldfield Trek 1988

The Bicentennial Goldfield pipeline Trek is a tribute to the engineer CY O’Conner starting from the forestry area of Mundaring Weir on September 24th 1988 a two week trip following the Maundaring to Kalgoorlie pipeline finishing on 6th October, with participants on horse, walking, bicycles and horse drawn wagons and buggies. It all started back in 1987 when Dad decided to take part in the trek after finding out about the trek from Russel Jenkins of Pickering Brook. First thing now was to buy a horse, well Dad found a great one called Bow.

Now dad set about building a stable and making sure the fences were all ok for our new horse, after all this was done now the real hard work started, learning to ride a horse at the age of 56. I believe Dad rode horses in his younger years but this was a long time ago. Dad was never one to walk away from a challenge, so he would get up early in the morning before work and take Bow for a ride or in some cases Bow took Dad for a ride, as I remember Dad returning some mornings saying Bow had been spooked on his ride taking off like a bullet and even throwing Dad off a few times.

Dad proceeded to work with Bow every morning whether it was raining or fine, as he only had limited time before the trek to become more familiar with Bow so he trusted Dad, as this was no new horse, he was already aged and set in his ways.

The whole trip was organised with a full support crew on the way, they would travel ahead to organise each overnight stopover point, arranging food and shelter for both participants’ and horses, also offering assistance and medical requires if needed along the way.

Well it was time to start September 24 1988