WESTERN AUSTRALIA Kalbarri to Eneabba 6-14 September

Saturday 6 September  KALBARRI

Called in at Bush Heritage property Eurardy en route to Kalbarri.  Wish we could have stayed there but they are busy with 20 volunteers for a mallee fowl survey.  Good place to stay - powered sites, washing machine (though waiting for repair), swimming pool, good camp kitchen, big shaded area with tables and chairs, fields of wildflowers and guided tours available.

at Eurardy

Saw many interesting plants en route to Kalbarri:

Ptilotus obovatus

Verticordia

Calytrix brevifolia

Kangaroo paw - Anigozanthos mangle

Conostylis robusta

At Kalbarri, we scored a nice shady spot in Murchison River CP with sunset and river views.  New en suite ablutions did not cater for numbers.  Caught up with washing and internet.  Local shops include good bakery, IGA, several modern, well-patronised cafes.  Walked along river promenade before buying fish and chips for tea.

Sunday 7 September  KALBARRI    MURCHISON GORGE
Walked The Loop in Kalbarri NP, despite sign telling you to go back unless you're fit and agile, confident with heights, have 3l water, etc.  Supposed to be 8km and take 4 hours.  We completed walk in 4 hours but GPS registered 9km.  Steep and narrow to start, beautiful wildflowers, lovely cliff-faces with cream and raspberry thin layers, topped by sharp crusty red plates.

 

 

 Went down to river and then beside it on ledges which became progressively narrower until we were unable to go further. 

Retraced our steps and climbed up much higher for a short section, then down again to the ledges, then sand and a final slog uphill to Nature's Window.   We only had 2L water between us and needed double that. Sighting a red-capped robin on the last stretch was a bonus.  I was exhausted and very red-faced, obvious to all that we had done the walk.  The only other walkers we saw were 5 young foreign back-packers. We saw many lovely plants on the way and some hillsides were punctuated with flowers.

Stylidium

Verticordia

We still had another walk in the area - to the much-lauded Z Bend gorge, just 1.5 km unless we went down to the river.  I did not find it as interesting or pretty as The Loop area - probably gorged-out.   However, the many melaleucas with deep pink and white flowers on the same shrub were most attractive (Melaleuca filifolia).

Monday 8 September  DRUMMOND COVE

Tried to find another site in Kalbarri but found nothing to suit.  By 9:30 we were at the local Wildflower Centre, walking their signposted 1.5km Nature Trail, cost $5 each.  Well worth it and useful for identifying many plants we had already seen.

Drove through the narrow southern section of Kalbarri NP which consists of a series of lookouts and some coastal trails. 

Eagle Bluff

Mushroom Rock

We were both tired after yesterday's exertions but enjoyed the 45 min Mushroom Rock walk with signs explaining geology and fossils.  Content with lookouts elsewhere. 

Drummond Cove is an area 10km north of Geraldton where our car was due for a service on Wednesday.  We knew of several CPS there and hoped the area would be attractive.  Lucky to get a site at all and even luckier to get one which had shade, grass and a view!  Plus it is cheap - $21.60 - and has spotless sensible ablutions block.  Owners had a wacky sense of humour!

 

 

 9-10 September  DRUMMOND COVE

Lazy day.  Cool early and late but lovely sun and some wind during the day.  Walked over sandhills down to the beach, which shelves quite sharply and has brown seaweed.  Drove around new suburbs overlooking ocean north of Geraldton.  Seem to be far too many blocks of land awaiting buyers, no shops, ? schools, views only of ocean and some sand dunes.  Horse paddocks adjoin CP which is very peaceful, although aviary next to our site is noisy all day - budgies, cockatiels, doves, housed in excellent fashion.

Went to Geraldton Visitor Centre, then to library for free wireless internet with books of WA flora by my side.  Had a good hour there while David took car for wash.

11-12 September  MULLEWA

Awning was soaked after night of rain and occasional light flurries sped our packing.  Council caravan park at Mullewa was spotless and we were able to set up in windy dry conditions, but with unpromising skies.  David decided we should drive a route featured on the brochure, 110km round trip.  Map was inadequate so we missed some attractions but that shortened the route.  D particularly wanted to see glacial moraine but we had to guess where that was and if we guessed correctly, it was hardly an attraction.  On way back, in despair we followed a dirt road to a Pioneer Well.  Good choice.  Well was quite deep, old and had very good stonework.  Surroundings were fields of wildflowers as good as we'd seen anywhere else.

Brunonia australis

Eremophila

Schoenia cassiniana

Cephipterum drummondii White pom poms & yellow everlasting

After lunch we drove to my choice, Pindar, because the toilet notice at caravan park said wreath flowers were to be found there.  Pindar had an old stone hotel, now guest house, and plenty of wildflowers but we had problems finding wreath flowers.  As last resort, we went to guest house and read notice. 

10km of corrugated gravel changed to yellow sand which led to 500m of rather spectacular roadside verge.  Wreath flowers are indeed different and well worth chasing at least once in a lifetime.

Lechenaultia macrantha Pindar

 

  Keraudrenia integrifolia, smooth leaf firebush

The next day we followed the Mullewa Wildflower Trail by car, stopping frequently to investigate large tracts of beautiful flowers.

Dampiera spicigera

 

Orange lichen

There were some interesting signs along the way.

In 1920 the local priest and architect, Monsignor John Hawes, designed and built the local church, now Heritage listed. 

Saturday 13 September  ENEABBA

Rained overnight so packing up was a bit messy but not as bad as on Thursday.  I am running out of steam and getting sick of continual movement.  Drove to Coalseam Nature Reserve with attractions of wildflowers (poor cf to Mullewa), Irwin R (mostly sandbanks) and layered cliff.  Overcast and windy; stayed only 10 minutes.  On to Dongara to shop before going to Western Flora caravan park.  Drove to lookout at mouth of Irwin R expecting nothing, but saw several white casuarinas dotted with little pied cormorants. 

Adjoining nature trail featured a bird hide 650m away - couldn't resist that walk and was rewarded with sightings of variegated wrens, grey currawong and grey reef egret.

Warmly greeted at caravan park and booked in for roast chicken dinner, preceded by guided walk at 4:30 and slide show afterwards.

Learned a lot about pollination and influences on growth.  Red flowers are bird pollinated, yellow centred flowers by insects (centres go red/pink once pollinated), white perfumed flowers by night-flying moths.

Petal is a landing pad for insects who see in ultra violet spectrum.  Kangaroo paws – stem bent back so bird can perch to feed down tube – reproductive organs on underside so pollen rubs off on bird’s head.

Check the nectar site on a grevillea – bird has to get pollen on it.

Plant toxicologist said red flowers contain cyanide – red a danger signal to kangaroos.

Hibbertia – wind pollination; each hair attached to one ovary cell; not one seed has same male parent.  Algae on pollen in stratosphere. 

Hakea spatulfolia Uses smell - pollinated by flies.  Purple flower deep in leaves; opens as male, turns female.  Female stigma keeps tip out of the road so no self-pollination.

Banksias – new growth starts under cone.  Cockatoos break off cone, not branch.

Draw a line from just above Kalbarri to Esperance – one side is dry – mallee/acacias & 3-5m between plants; after rain, everlastings bloom.  More rain on other side leads to heath.  Here = N heathlands; 2000 sp in 40 sq km.

16 sp. Drosera, 3 Casuarinas on property. Sedge found here with seeds 3x nutritive value of wheat.

Ants 30 sp.  Day workers and night workers block each others’ holes.

Here there are 300 different native bee species (1200 in Australia). A solitary bee – around 12 females club together to dig burrow; each one makes a branch. Male bees only use flowers to sleep.  There is a native bee specific to each Conospermum.

Sunday 14 September  ENEABBA

Walked 6km around the 160 acre property, to the brown narrow Arrowsmith River, with overhanging cream melaleuca shrubs.

Lovely large shrubs of Scholtzia laxiflora, pink flowers hiding the small leaves.

Saw many other beautiful named plants.

Conospermum stoechadis

Anigozanthos humilis - Catspaw

Caladenia flaxa

Calothamnus quadrifida

 

Burchardia congesta

Allocasuarina campestris

Hibbertia hypercoides

Leptosema aphyllum

Male Macrozamia fraseri

Petrophile brevifolia

Caladenia longicauda Spider orchid

To The Pinnacles via Cervantes and Jurien Bay.  Cool, windy day, no day for locals or tourists at a seaside locale.  Most shops and even a service station closed.  Coastal towns look new, a bit expensive, would-be Sunshine Coast for Perth folks.  Not attractive to us.  The Pinnacles were a surprise - not as tall as I expected, more varied, far more extensive, and enhanced by bands of dark green vegetation with ocean in the distance.  Worth the 270km round trip.

 

Hakea at The Pinnacles

Joined Alan again for the 4:30pm wildflower walk.  He knew we had done it last night and I think deliberately went a different route and added other elements, aided by Roxy, his grey kangaroo helpmate.  Roxy kept scratching herself and at one point Alan helped by detaching a tick from her and giving it to her.  She ate it with relish.  We later found a few kangaroo ticks on us.