Once we are on the highway and heading south there is lots of wattle
lining the roadside with little yellow and white flowers creating quite a display especially with on a background of red dirt. As we get further south there are some beautiful large graceful spreading gums that have red tips on the upper branches to give the trees a reddish tinge. I am so excited to see trees again. Then we come across a wildflower spectacle on the side of the road- purple daisies, red grevilleas, yellow wattle, another yellow flower and some purple heath like flower.
We spent the nightdat Murchison River free camp and we found a nice spot overlooking the river which has some water in it but was not flowing. A pelican was swimming and diving with great gusto so I guess there are some fish in there.
I walked up the river bed to find some wood
for the fire and was delighted to come across masses of yellow flower scattered through the paddock. When I saw them in the distance I thought it was canola but they were wild flowers.We went for a walk to see some ruins nearby and came across Dan the caretaker.
He is one of those characters you meet, who lives by himself with a very fat dog and lives in a little makeshift hut.He showed us where the ruins of a stone cottage with thick walls were and also pointed out some children’s graves which were outlined by a stones on the ground- no headstones or crosses. Makes you realise how tough it was in those early days. He commented on how poor the wild flowers were this year because of the lack of rain – I thought they were beautiful.
It was a beautiful day with no wind which was a pleasant change.
That night we had a warming fire and cooked our meal over the fire. It is getting much colder as we head south.
The next day we had a huge surprise as the countryside changed from scrub to open paddocks of green – probably a wheat crop. The roads are still lined with wattle some of which is quite stunning. It seems we are back to “normal” scenery. As we turned off to Kalbarri there are lots of banksias which have unfortunately finished flowering. We went into the national park to see Ross Graham Lookout. It looks out over the Murchison River which has carved out a stunning deep gorge in the red sandstone.
The track takes you down to the river and the colours in the sandstone are amazing. There are lots of river gums here and the area is dotted with wattle so it is very pretty. From there we went to
Hawks Head lookout where you can see right down the gorge but the river is inaccessible here.This was very beautiful. We bumped into the friends that we met at Hamelin Station. It’s a small world when you are travelling.Before long we were coming into Kalbarri. Unfortunately we only could get one night here as it is a very pretty place. Our CP overlooked the Murchison River which is wide and beautiful.
We had to vote and do some shopping. Then we went to the lookout at the mouth of the river. There is a very dangerous bar here with the waves crashing in all directions. We watched a boat coming in. You certainly need some skill to negotiate this one. From here you can also see the dangerous cliffs where many explorers’ ships have been wrecked. This is the first time we have seen larger waves on the shore.
Just south of Kalbarri you are back in the National park and there is another magnificent lookout where you can see right up the pretty coastline northwards and on the south you see the craggy red rock of the sandstone cliffs.
It was very windy and rather cold.
This is where Grey the explorer’s boat was wrecked and their lifeboat broke up on the rocks as they tried to land. They had to walk all the way back to Perth and nearly died in the effort.
The next morning I went to The Wildflower Centre. As I walked down the driveway I was amazed at the variety and colour. There were lots of birds everywhere. Unfortunately my camera battery was dead!! Out the back was over a kilometre of paths through natural bushland and it was ablaze with colourful flowers. All the plants were labelled so I was able to learn and recognise different variety which I was very keen to do. It will be so helpful when we see more flowers along the sides of the road. I was absolutely excited to see so many wildflowers and we will be seeing many more.
Once we left the national park we came to more open spaces of green pastures.We only had a short distance to go. Our next camp was in a nice position where you could see the ocean but the campsite wasn’t too good. It was also very very windy and cold and we arrived there fairly early so it was rather a confined day of reading.
We headed off the next day through the rolling countryside with lots of wattle lining the road until we came to the Pink Lake and Port Gregory. We decided to stay here and go to a day trip to Hutt River Province.
The Pink Lake is actually caused by beta–caratene in the water. Beta carotene is used in many health products and is harvested from here. The lake is very pink.
Just out of Port Gregory there were some interesting convict ruins. Some of the buildings had been restored but the prison was in its original state. You can see how small the cell were and inmage how tough it was for the convicts.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people who disregard our heritage and all the walls were full of graffiti.
No comments:
Post a Comment