TnL Wanderings

Western Australian Wildflowers

West Australian wildflowers are not something that we’d heard of before, okay apparently Lena knew about them but I didn’t. I guess this is another strong indication of our, probably my, naivety, but what, they have flowers in WA? Yes, everywhere has flowers, but it’s not something that I’ve considered Australia to have many of, especially not the dusty west. So watching the news and talking to friends here we discovered that we were quite wrong. Western Australia has a beautiful spring season where outback is drenched with cool winter rain and when it begins to warm up the flora erupts in a truly Australian style flower season. When we say truly Australian style flower season we’re referring to small but delicate flowers and orchids hidden in hardened outback scrub. Somewhat un-easterly there are also hundreds of kilometres of what would normally be dusty undergrowth converted into lush white low-lying clouds.

We had planned to go with my parents but due to an altercation with an inconsiderate river bank which resulted in more ankle adjust-ability than mum was interested in, the long-planned caravanning trip around Western Australia during the wildflower season did not come to pass. This was quite a disappointment for my parents, but on the upside good for my work. It also meant that a leisurely trip with our parents was changed into a long haul journey with friends over a weekend. But, beggars can’t be choosers (except for well beggars….).

So our trip made its beginning on a surprisingly clear afternoon from Perth, cold yes but clear. This year is apparently the coldest on record for the last 20 something years in Perth which has been put on just for us apparently. It would’ve been much more preferable that the weather was nice and cold when we were in Japan earlier in the year for skiing, maybe since this is bad luck we’ve got a bucket load of good luck coming, it has to average out surely…  This trip was also another one of Lena’s major driving practise runs, in fact, she’d, I guess you could say, nominated herself as designated driver for the weekend. This would come in handy when we were trying to keep up drinks with sheep shearers in Morawa, which is impossible.

So driving out we headed straight for the Jurian Bay tourist park which is about 300km north of Perth and on the shore. We didn’t have high expectations for the caravan park beyond it just being a momentary stop in our movements toward our main flowery objective. As it turned out the holiday villas at Jurian Bay tourist park are actually quite good while a little pricey. Unfortunately the evening and the morning presented some pretty cold conditions so relaxing on the small deck or having beer on the beach was out of the question.

Our rough path of flower finding is below:

Lesueur National Park – the park was full of very small and ornate Australian wildflowers as well as a number of native outback orchids. The park has a ~10km loop which brings you to the Lesueur mountain walking track and a roughly 2km loop which takes you through the area of WA scrub wild flowers. This was a good chance for our little possie to walk around and take some photos. The variety of ornate small delicate flowers is spectacular, also many people seem to be intrigued by the flowers as well, and there seems to be general competition for people whether including other or not of finding as many types of flowers and orchids as they can. After walking the loop we headed for Coalseam national park, but named so because of the coal seam which runs through the side of the riverbank. This is also a stop off on what’s known as the everlastings trail which for us, while some of the everlastings were still about, was probably a little late.

Coalseam  national park has a couple of areas to stop and do some short walks to a viewing point as well as down into the Irwin river. The eroded river banks are quite pretty and picturing this with the yellow undergrowth of the everlastings would be very pleasant. We ventured down into the Irwin river to have a look at what might be alive, or maybe it was just general curiosity. However we were lucky to spot two mulga parrots which were looking for some clean water to muddy up, or was it for them to get clean. Then walking back from the river to the car to my absolute delight we spotted a blue splendid fairy wren. This was highlight for me as I’d been keen to see one of these pretty blue wrens for a long time and they’d been rather elusive. Not only this but it had decided to do a little posing in a wattle which was in full bloom. We had however almost exhausted our time just getting from Jurian bay to Lesueur and then to Coalseam in a single day. Certainly if you wanted to climb Lesueur mountain then I don’t think attempting this in a single day would be wise. For us however this meant driving on the back roads to Morawa for a night with Mike, the British pub attendants and Ben who seemed to have quite the capacity to make flavoured vodka which went down well late at night.

Waking up the next day to the sound of a fire alarm in one of the Morawa pub rooms at the back of the pub was not entirely welcome, but served as a reason to get moving. The next job was to get some coffee which, according to the local newsagent was best at the service station. This was rather remarkable given that I would never pick the town service station to be good for anything but petrol. However the owner was very passionate about his coffee and it was quite surreal being prompted for whether I’d like a flat white or a latte in a small service station next to automotive supplies. True to their word the coffee was quite good and kept the male contingent awake while Lena navigated her way to the next flower destination.

Driving from Morowa to Perenjori is a pretty short stint compared to driving between Jurian Bay and Coalseam so this went swiftly and gave us a little bit of time to dry out. The community centre at Perenjori was excellent and the lady that directed us to the wreath flowers was full of enthusiasm and information. I can hardly believe that someone could be so enthusiastic after describing the same sets of instructions, fauna and flora descriptions  to visitors all morning. Certainly if you’re looking for where to find flowers or wildlife I’d drop in an have a talk to them, also it’s basically the only place open in town on a Sunday so you’ll probably have few other choices if you’d like to have a chat to someone..

The very helpful local community centre

For us the wreath flowers were only a few minutes out from Perenjori (see the map above). They were also in the middle of a complete dusty dry what looked like dry mud car park. What on earth would’ve driving such strange flowers to make a choice to set roots into an inhospitable location like that is beyond our collective understandings. The soft delicate bush and it’s ring of pink flowers look like they were recently tossed (albeit carefully) from a flower truck.

After the wreath flowers we headed for the camel soak which was recommended by the lady at Perenjori as well as to monger’s lookout over the lakes. Both locations had much more of the same flowery undergrowth, in particular for us camel soak was a picturesk with a large exposed granite mound and surrounding areas of lush scrub and cool wetland providing lots more hidden spots for orchids, lizards and a pair of mulga parrots.

From there we drove to Bunden rock  for a quick stop. Interestingly the brochure we had mentioned that you can stand on the rock and view the developed countryside along with the original native bush land. The contrast was evident and this proved another nice stop off. This largely rolled up our day and we returned to Perth.

Araluen Botanic Park

So, we haven’t updated this blog in a while. Shame on us. Obviously some people have the capacity to fit everything in life as well as everything in a blog. One day we might graduate to this point after cloning ourselves and doing some sort of Red Dwarf style mind meld. Speaking of Red Dwarf, it is outrageously expensive on iTunes, why we ask why….

Anyhow. So Araluen, in-fact, Perth Australia generally, lets pause for a paragraph; We’re no longer in Africa or Japan and have been based in Perth for quite a few months. Perth is, much to our surprise being an Australian easterner, not a dust bowl full of rock breakers and hermits wandering in from the desert, but a beautiful cosmopolitan city full of lovely parks, bike ways and even more surprisingly to us at least, a vibrant nightlife full of hidden pubs and music venues. Surprised? I guess if you’re not from Australia this probably doesn’t mean much, but Perth is a very long way from the east, from Brisbane (our old home) it is a mere 360 million centimetres. At regular ant speed this would take roughly 2.3 ant running years to cross. You can tell that we’ve been watching documentaries recently. At some point in the future we’ll, given some time, add some general articles about Perth and what it’s like for an Australian easterner.

For the moment however we’ll stick to the original story, Araluen Botanical Park. Araluen, as known by the westies, is a small government operated ‘botanical’ park south east from Perth by about 25km (5.8 ant days) is apparently difficult to get to by train or bus, but by car it’s only a short trip of about 40 minutes or less in good traffic. The drive can be made quite lovely by getting off the highway and taking as many back options as possible as at the same time that the tulips are out the peach, apple and plum trees are in flower in the orchards close-by. To do this if you’re coming from the city, take a left off the Tonkin high way around Gosnells and take a more direct rout down to via Roleystone, here is a rough map.  One of it’s many claims to fame is it’s very impressive display of tulips during the springtime. They’re cheating a little bit obviously purchasing the bulbs and planting them prior to the spring when it’s cool enough in the winter. However that’s the case for just about everywhere in Australia for tulips unless you’re in Tasmania, which must be a pretty amazing place. However if you turn a blind eye to the cheating, which is fine by us as Lena loves tulips, the place is really quite spectacular.

The park itself is not terribly large and would only occupy about half a day if you were slowly walking through the grounds, but given that it’s a relatively short drive from the city it’s worth a look. There is also a nice stream running through the park so if you’re like the many others who don’t mind a bit of timelapse photography of streams then you’ll be in luck. For us the display of tulips was the main game and they did not disappoint. There is also mention of bird life out in the park, but aside from a few common birds flying about we didn’t see much. I would guess that this is largely because of the number of people who were there and as such if there were fewer people you might get some nice shots amongst the flowers.

We would certainly recommend a visit when the tulips are out and about, it was lovely!