Lovely Boy

(The cat not the film!). We named him Othello when C first got him from the cat haven, but we soon started calling him Boy for short. He was very black at the beginning, but his fur has gone brownish in old age. Like all of us, he has put on weight whilst living the good life. He is on a diet at home, but evidently roams the neighbourhood searching for extra nourishment. Here in the photo, he is sitting on top of the compost bin waiting for a low flying bird.

Pickering Brook Bushwalk

Rain was forecast and it came all day in short, sharp showers. We were constantly putting on our rain jackets and taking them off again. I was keen to try out my new hiking sandals in wet conditions. The latest thinking in Camino circles is that sandals are better than boots because they are lighter (and less effort to move) and they also allow the feet to breathe and stay cooler. Nobody says anything about walking through muddy puddles and having wet socks all day! My test was incomplete: although it rained on and off all day, my socks didn't get wet and there were no really sodden areas of the track.

There were lots of wildflowers and flowering shrubs out, all doing well in the rain. This one was my favourite:

Kunzia

Kunzia bush

The walk was about 13 kms on bush tracks, not hard but as usual I was tired in the last hour when for some reason the leaders increase the pace!

Macrozamia cones: they are poisonous, but the aborigines knew how
to treat them to make them edible

the seeds when produced are the size of a large raw date and occur in considerable quantity. The seed is surrounded by a thin shell containing a nut-like interior and is obviously an excellent food source, but these ancient plants have developed defences against being eaten and are highly poisonous as early explorers and settlers quickly discovered, when they doubled up in pain after eating them, some even dying. However aborigines over thousands of years of occupation discovered ways to neutralise them by roasting, leaching and aging, etc (don’t try this at home), so to them it became an important food source. With their fire-stick land management, it is quite likely they farmed these plants by burning regularly to encourage flowering.

(From the Esperance website mentioned in the previous post)

One of the many species of bacon and egg plants

Start and end of the walk; blue leschenaultias everywhere.

Plant diversity in the south west

I've joined a class at MALA (Mature Age Learning Association) entitled The Incredible Plant Diversity of the South West. It is being given by Neville Marchant, retired director of the Perth Herbarium. We are learning why there are so many plant groups here which are not found anywhere else in the world, and why they can thrive in such a harsh climate with very poor soil. The Yilgarn Craton in the eastern part is an ancient land surface, once part of Gondwanaland, and has remained cut off ever since. The plant life has existed here for millions of years.

We were referred to a website maintained by a botanist in Esperance, which has a collection of incredibly detailed photos of wildflowers:
A beautiful website here!  This site is an unusual blog, in that posts do not appear in date order, but in alphabetical order according to the species. My own photos of local wildflowers are pathetic in comparison, but I'm trying to improve.

Typical landscape of the Yilgarn Craton,
containing some of the oldest rocks in the world.

Kitty's Gorge Bushwalk

Named after a cow called Kitty, who wandered off from the herd and ended up in the steep-sided Gorge. That was the end of Kitty. The Bushwalk felt like that for some of us oldies. It was 13 kms of track, mostly up and down, with some really stony slopes. On the Camino, there is a such a slope named the Mule Killer. We were rewarded by many wildflowers, including fringe lilies which are my favourites.

Fringe lilies

Trigger plants

Cowslip orchids

Conostylis

Morning tea spot

Hibbertia beside the trail

Sign on the tree said TRAIL CLOSED; maybe to noisy motor bikes?

Lunch spot by the waterfall

Some years ago, we used to do the walk from Jarrahdale Cemetery along Gooralong Brook up to Serpentine Falls.  This was a much nicer walk, but it fell out of favour as it involved a car shuffle. Maybe we should go back to this?

Singing Waters

Singing Waters is the aboriginal name for Araluen, a botanic park in a sheltered valley near Perth. It has its own microclimate with little wind, rich soil and high rainfall which allows the planting of species which don't thrive in our domestic gardens. There are Magnolias, Azaleas and Camellias in flower. In Spring, people flock to see beds full of tulips, all planted by volunteers. My favourite things (which I've missed this year) are daffodils and jonquils. I remember them from living in York, where they surrounded the city walls, and I missed them when I first came to live in Australia. Along with Marks and Spencer's!

Wisteria on the roof of the cafe; it was packed inside!

Wungong Bushwalk

Yesterday was really too hot for bushwalking: 27 degrees in the afternoon!  We arrived back heat exhausted and possibly de-hydrated. The speed of the group was a bit too fast for me. We covered about 13 kms, walking from the main road (SW Highway) up to the Wungong Dam and back again. There are shady picnic spots on both side of the dam wall. People opted for the far one. There was a lovely cooling breeze coming off the water as we walked across. We noticed smoke from a bushfire on one hill to our right. The fire was, fortunately, heading towards the water. Maybe it was a controlled burn?

The air was thick with sweet-smelling blossom from this shrub
which used to grow in JL's garden at Quinns

Blue leschenaultia and white Swan River myrtle

Close-up, out of focus

Water flowing down granite outcrop

Remains of granite quarry

Native clematis

Clematis close-up

Hillside full of Xanthorrhoea
(previously called Blackboy, now no longer pc)

More info and lovely photos here

Wireless Hill

Many keen orchid hunters descended on Wireless Hill today.  It's the season! We managed to find a few in spite of (or because of) the crowds.

JL found a handy seat
(actually a concrete anchor for holding the wireless cable in place)

Some History

In 1909 the Commonwealth Government decided that wireless telegraphy stations should be established around the coastline of Australia, and in 1910 awarded the contract for the Perth station to Australasian Wireless Ltd. Clearing of the site and construction began in 1911, with the Applecross Wireless Station completed and officially opened on 30 September 1912. Initially the station was used for communications with shipping. This included transmission of weather forecasts, news bulletins and time signals, sending medical advice to ships with no doctors aboard, and monitoring for distress calls.  In wartime, the station monitored enemy shipping. Initially all radio transmissions used Morse code; the technology to transmit voice was developed in the 1920s, and even then Morse code was still the primary method for long distances up until the station closed in 1968. Local residents commonly referred to the area as Wireless Hill, (Wikipedia).

Kangaroo Paws

White Spider Orchid

Red Spider Orchid

Rattlebeak  Orchid

Donkey Orchids

More Rattlebeaks

Cats Paw and Granny Bonnets

Potted orchid at home

.................

At Ninghan Station, 350 km north of Perth, there is apparently a great show of everlastings - according to the weekend paper:
Ninghan Station: nature-ablaze-in-colour