Wildflowers

Kalbarri to Perth, Narrogin and more….

Posted 13th October 2023

This blog is a wildflower extravaganza, I can’t help but show you just how beautiful, unique, prolific and awesome they are. I hope that you can see their awesomeness too, through my camera lens. I’ve attempted to name most of them, but cannot guarantee 100% accuracy.

We headed down the coast road from Kalbarri to Port Gregory, an insignificant place where the pink lake was more interesting than the town. Not far from the lake was the old remains of the Lynton Heritage Site where, from 1853 – 1856 they would hire out convicts for service to the early settlers. It was a bleak place, where we could read haunting stories of known convicts and the wretched life they led. We happily left there for a lunch pitstop by the sea at Horrocks, nice little holiday spot.

The aim then was to head inland to search for wildflowers. Mullawa to Mingenew was written up as “the true heart and soul of Wildflower Country”. Along the roadsides we spotted some small drifts of flowers, but felt a bit cheated in our search. At Mullawa, there was a lovely gallery open as part of an “Open Studios” week. The artist, Helen Ansell, was there, her paintings were bright and bold and very flowery, and the coffee and cakes were great. But we were informed that it was a bad year for wildflowers in this region due to a lack of rain. We saw that even the papery everlastings were wilting. Not to be deterred, we pressed on towards Mingenew, and bang…STOP the car!!! there was a fabulous patch with native blue everlasting daisies…the only ones we’ve seen all the trip. As we found numerous times, each stop revealed far more than we’d expected, or could see from the car as we raced past at 95kmh.

We spent an entertaining night at Three Springs pub, a quiet town famous for its Talc factory. We’d parked Swifty in a free camp site managed by the local council. It was the night of an AFL semi final with Port Adelaide and Brisbane, I think. The few ragged characters propping up the bar agreed with us and supported anyone who could beat Port. Not much happens in Three Springs, we were obviously ring-ins, but the locals liked to have a yarn with us. I’m sure they had no idea where we’d come from even though we told them. We all had a win, Port Adelaide was finished for the year.

From there it was random where we went, but we found some great patches of flowers as we headed back to the coast via Eneabba and ended up at Leeman on the coast. Even less was happening in Leeman than in Three Springs we discovered. We were one of 2 campers in the entire park. It was the week before school holidays and we were assured this place was now fully booked until Easter!! Found that hard to believe.

Leeman was our base to explore magnificent Lesueur National Park, world renowned as a global diversity hotspot, and this proved to be true. The Park contains 10% of WA’s known flora. The 18km one way drive was spectacular. We walked around the 3km Gairdner Loop Trail and found a black Kangaroo Paw much to our delight, along with many more stunning gems. Nick enjoys the searching for small treasures as much as I do and strides away while I take photos…then I’ll hear…”come over here.” Then he’ll stride off again while I take the photos and the process repeats and repeats. I’ll let the pictures from there tell the story.

Next we stayed at Lancelin, after popping in to see what Green Head, Jurien Bay, and Cervantes had to offer, which was mostly crowded caravan parks without vacancies. We did a quick pitstop at Lake Thetis to see thrombolytes, living fossils, like the strombolites at Hamelin Pools near Shark Bay.

But of course, the must see destination on this part of the Coral Coast near Cervantes is The Pinnacles. It’s hard to say what was there, what we saw, even the displays in the visitor centre said that the experts really don’t know what the Pinnacles are. To us they looked like petrified wood, a forest fossilised in time in an isolated desert environment…a pretty weird but awesome place in fact. 

Lancelin was only a couple of hours from Perth. We needed to do the mandatory detour to the Land Rover shop in Perth for car parts, then we had to drop Nick’s bike in for repairs. Arriving back in lovely Fremantle, we settled in with Nick’s sister Biddy and her husband Nick and two boisterous dogs for a few nights.

We took ourselves for a tour around old haunts where both of us had lived, like Cottesloe, Shenton Park, and Claremont, back in the 60’s and 70’s. We spent an afternoon at beautiful King’s Park for the ultimate wildflower experience of Perth. Yes, they were stunning in the flower beds, but I do prefer finding gems out in the countryside, along back lanes, and in small conservation parks. We rode our bikes along the Fremantle foreshore, enjoyed the seaside coffee shops and mingled with the crowds at the historic old market. The Applecross market on Saturday morning was most enjoyable, and gave us a glimpse into the wealthy suburbs of Perth.

We moved on to Narrogin to stay with Nick’s brother and sister-in-law. Narrogin is in the heart of the wheatbelt, it’s a conservative Liberal town where 90% of people turned away from us when they saw our “YES” badges. The purpose of staying here for 4 weeks was for Nick to help Charlie get one of his fleet of inactive vehicles working again. His garden has 4 old Land Rovers and the tractor, his shed has 2 Land Rovers (one being Rosie the fire engine), also Alice the Sunbeam Alpine, a 1976 P6 Rover, and a Wolseley 6/80 from 1953. His shed complex is like Aladdin’s cave, mysterious, filled with wonderful boy toys and machinery. Nick and Charlie are a great team and will both be rewarded with a rest after we leave.

About 30kms away is Dryandra Woodland National Park. This 28,000ha woodland is Charlie’s workplace. He took Nick and I out one day in search of wildflowers, of which there was an abundance, but also looking for the elusive Numbat. He eluded us this time but a sweet little echidna was a good substitute for now. Narrogin has another great little parkland at Foxes Lair, walking distance from the house, where orchids and wildflowers are sprouting everywhere.

We took a day trip to Bunbury. Morning tea in Collie, a well known coal producing town. It was a clean charming town, bigger than I expected with an historic feel around the train station. The rolling hills, lush farmlands with freshly mown hay and roadside wildflowers made for a very pleasant drive to Bunbury. Lovely to sit in a cafe on the beach whilst enjoying a seafood lunch. A visit to St Aidan’s winery was a treat, furnishing us with a box of prize wines, of course.

While the boys worked on Landrovers, I visited Foxes Lair again with my camera. Being now the second week into October, the orchids are just about gone, but another wave of flowers were showing their tiny faces. Trigger plants, many not higher than 1-2cm, were spreading like a carpet under the trees and shrubs. Very hard to photograph, my poor knees can’t cope with getting down low, and if I did, I would probably get stuck there. But I do appreciate now how the plants change as Spring rolls on, and I’m most grateful I can spend a few months in WA seeing so many different flowers.

I’ll end this blog with a report on our visit to Barna Mia, a predatory-proof animal sanctuary nestled in Dryandra Woodland. There are 5 species of native marsupials there … bilby, boodie, woylie, quenda and mala..their indigenous names. Using special red torches, we sat quietly waiting for one to appear. Bilby, boodie, woylie and mala all showed up and they are very cute. Bilby came hopping up the path towards us, what a treat to see him! There is a challenge out now to see a numbat, which is not nocturnal, so our last week in Narrogin will be an interesting search.

As we begin to experience 35C days here, we know summer is on the way. Hayfever season is in full swing, so Nick will love being down by the sea in Albany in a couple of weeks.

Much love to all

Jen & Nick