Signs of the times

I went into the city today to see a financial advisor about my millions. In the Perth Underground Station, all the advertisements had been replaced by ones urging people to get vaccinated. This is one of many:

This is on a day when there are 239 new Covid cases in Sydney, a new daily record. At the moment, WA seems to be only threatened with crews on cargo ships who have come via Indonesia and find themselves sick in Australian waters.

My appointment was on the 15th floor of a high rise office tower. It felt more like New York than Perth:

The river, and Burswood, is somewhere beyond the two cranes. This ultra modern office tower has signs on every floor about registering with the COVIDSafe app, plus in the bathrooms are 10-stage instructions on how to wash your hands correctly.

There is a really nice coffee bar on the ground floor. I read the paper and stole the cooking section: these city types eat takeaways all the time, don’t they?

Tomato Lake

A meet-up for greyhound owners was scheduled for Sunday morning at Tomato Lake, a small area of suburban bush land a short drive away. It was a fine morning and we all congregated at 9.00 am. to do two circuits of the lake with the dogs:

Rocky looked smart in his waterproof coat:

The lake attracts huge flocks of white ibis, more than you could point a stick at (as the saying goes). I normally see a couple at a time at Burswood, but there were literally hundreds perched on trees around the lake. They also gave off a pong:

If you are wondering why it’s called Tomato Lake, here is the answer:

Jarrahdale

Jarrahdale is a historic town about an hour’s drive away. It was established in the late 1800’s as the state’s first major timber milling operation and WA saw jarrah exported around the world. Yesterday was a rare break in the heavy rain, (it’s been the wettest July for 30 years), so I decided to make the most of it for a drive and a bushwalk. The prime walk is Kitty’s Gorge, named after a cow called Kitty who fell in and couldn’t get out again. It’s a walk I’ve done several times, usually with a car shuffle so that it was only necessary to walk one way, as far as Serpentine Dam. On my own, my target was the guaging station, 6.4 kms round trip. The beginning of the walk is the car park opposite the cemetery and there were already lots of cars when I arrived at 11.00 am.

The trail was very wet and muddy, with a few trees which had blown down in recent storms completely blocking the track. Fortunately I was wearing my boots and carrying the two professional trekking poles which I last used in Spain on the Camino. I took extra care scrambling over rocks. It felt good to be out in the sunshine.

Some interesting fungi had sprung up in the wet conditions:





This is the month for seeing the Golden Wattle trees in flower:

The little stream was in full flood:

This is where I had my lunch before turning back:




In the afternoon I popped into Millbrook Winery which was just down the road. This has an exclusive restaurant where it is hard to get a booking. The chef has a reputation for growing his own food on site. On Mondays he serves up a pot-luck lunch to use up all the uneaten veggies from the weekend’s service. I just wanted to stock up with his eggplant pickle, but I was tempted to also try a glass of Tempranillo in front of the fire:

Piesse Brook bushwalk

Yesterday was one sunny day bookended by two weeks of heavy rain, with damaging winds forecast. The ground is already saturated and more flooding may occur in the coming days. So, it was important to spend Sunday out and about. Because I’m a poor navigator, I chose a popular bushwalk where it was impossible to get lost:

Lots of people had the same idea; it was hard to find a parking spot near the entrance and the muddy track was all churned up with 4WD’s bumping along. In addition to the real ones were these little toys:

They are called radio controlled rock crawlers; grown men spend their Sunday morning taking them to meetups on difficult terrain! This was not what I came to see in the National Park.

First the wildflowers:

Hardenbergia
Native Wisteria

Templetonia biloba?
Horn-leaved Bossiaea

?

Acacia
Which one?

?

… and a few fungi:

The track crosses the Bibbulmun which comes down from the left, having started in Kalamunda township:

Finally the track ends at Rocky Pool, a favourite picnic spot where little kids take life in their hands, playing on the wet and slippery rocks next to the waterfalls:

The gushing water video is on my Instagram.

Piesse Brook is an important waterway which feeds into the reservoir at Mundaring. After all the rainfall it was flowing really fast:

Much more to come this week!

Wireless Hill wildflower trail

This wet miserable weather persists. A window of opportunity between the downpours arose this morning so I made a brief visit to Wireless Hill so see if anything was in flower. It’s definitely too early for kangaroo paws and orchids, but there were a few things of interest:

General view of bush

Blue tinsel lily

Pepper and salt
Philotheca spicata

Parrot bush
Banksia sessilis

Sundew

Grass tree

Wet weekend

Yesterday more than 36 mm fell in Perth. It rained all night and all day. This is something of a record. At around 5.00 pm it appeared to have stopped for a while, so I set off for a walk to inspect any damage. The old golf course was completely flooded and a variety of waterbirds were enjoying themselves in new pastures:

Looking back towards our apartments, I couldn’t help hoping that the foundations were intact:

There was a nice sunset over the river:

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