Ellis Brook Bushwalk

This was another good day for wildflowers. It was a walk of about 11 kms, starting with a very steep climb up from the car park. 15 people turned up - just a nice number not to lose any! The forecast had not been brilliant, but there was no rain to spoil our day. It had rained during the night though, so the streams were running.

Ellis Brook Falls

Common White Spider Orchid?

Blue Lady Orchid

Banksia dallanneyi or Couch Honeypot

Bracket fungi

White myrtle

Leschenaultia

Kingia Australis, or Drumsticks

Grass Tree, or Blackboy, with curved flower spike

Barrington Quarry, seen full of water for the first time

Jurien Bay Weekend (cont)

Wristwarmers

Ellie tests the Royalties for Regions Playground

John goes for a drive in an Ariel motorbike sidecar

Ellie and Margaret at the Pinnacles

C, E and J pose near a phallic pinnacle

Ellie climbs a pinnacle, which is not allowed!

John picks ripe quandongs, which he has not done since he was a boy!

Stewed quandongs and their interesting stones

Jurien Bay Weekend

We arrived at Jurien Bay Tourist Park just before 6.00 pm as the sun was going down. The drive from Perth took 3 hours on the Indian Ocean Road. We checked into our 2-bedroom chalet. A delicious meal of pasta elbows with Kailis fish chowder was quickly prepared, enhanced by some fat Geraldton prawns.  There was a small entree of sushi and a bottle of Madfish SSB.

During the night there was a storm with rain lashing the windows. By morning it had cleared up and a sunny day was forecast for our expedition to Mt Lesueur. C, E and M walked to the top of the plateau, from where there were views on all sides, including the sea north of Jurien. The top of the plateau, which had suffered a huge bushfire 4 years ago is now completely covered in waist high yellow hakeas and none of the trigger plants at ground level observed on a previous visit with the Nats.

Ellie and Claire near the summit

Looking across the plateau towards the coast north of Jurien

Ellie and Margaret near the old survey post

There were lots of wild flowers out beside the path going up and down, about 4 kms round trip from the car park.

Bee on a dryandra flower

Dryandra

Chittick

Blue tinsel lily

Cowslip orchid

Growing near the carpark.  What is it?

Creeping fringe lily

On returning to Jurien, we had a short siesta and then went for a walk out on the new jetty, followed by a beach walk to the remains of the old jetty.  Later we went across the road for dinner at the Beach Bistro, a small restaurant owned by a family from Glasgow.  It was surprisingly good!  We enjoyed a bottle of Yilgarnia Merlot.

Old jetty

Entree:  "Mediterranean plate"

Ellie's F and C in a bucket

Kings Park Bushwalk

On Sunday there was a shortish bushwalk in Kings Park. We had quite a good turnout of 21 people when we met at the big boab tree. The route took us along the path at the river edge, over the iron bridge and finally onto quiet tracks into the centre of the park. We had lunch near the Synergy Playground in front of the Zamia Cafe.  JL tried to catch up with us for lunch there, but was unable to find a park because there was a Vietnam War remembrance event going on and they had grabbed all the spaces.

At the DNA tower, Ellie and Lutz had a race to the top and down again. Ellie lost!

We had afternoon tea back at the start, then JL took me to a quiet spot to look for some wild freesias to pick.  These are regarded as weeds by the Nats as they are an introduced species, so we pulled up a few bulbs as well, to plant at Como.  We also found a beautiful donkey orchid.

Araluen

On Saturday JL and I went for a picnic to Araluen.  This is a lovely sheltered valley in the hills which rewards visitors with magnificent displays of daffodils and tulips at this time of year. Most of the bulbs are planted by volunteers. In recent years, it seems to have hit hard times and is running short of funding. There was not as much in flower and the beds of tulips seemed to have staggered planting, with half of them not yet out- presumably in an attempt to extend the season.

The displays of camellias were at their best, with every colour and variety imaginable:

We walked down to the bottom of the hill and sat by the lake for a while. Then JL  decided to go on the toy train to avoid walking up to the car park.

Kings Park

A cold but sunny morning tempted us to go to Kings Park.

We met Kevin and Yvonne Coate in the bookshop and they told us to go and see the beautiful display of Qualup Bells.

Bibbulmun Track Bushwalking

Our bushwalking group tackled the first part of the Bibbulmun Track today. It was billed as an 11 km walk, but it turned out to be 16!  The weather was lovely and sunny after a week of rain and the spring flowers were starting to appear, the best being the vivid purple hovea.

We had morning tea by the waterfall at Rocky Pool: