Wildflower trails

August is the month when carpets of wildflowers burst out in WA. I’m off to see some of them. My first trip up north was in 1997 with 3 girlfriends. I remember this well because of a big shock on the way home. We stopped for a break and someone told us about the death of Princess Diana. We could hardly believe it and rushed home to switch on the TV.

1997: me among the wildflowers

Back to 2021 and in the midst of COVID-19, I feel fortunate to be able to leave Perth without the lockdowns in the Eastern States. Last time I went on holiday at the end of April, I packed up in about 10 minutes to get away before the borders closed. Today I took about 2 hours and only left the house at 11.30.

The Great Northern Highway was extremely busy with road trains and big trucks. There were also a lot of potholes in the road, some of which had been hastily filled in but many still needed attention. I’ve never seen this before. It must be the result of subsidence after the heavy rainfall in the last few weeks.

I stopped at Bindoon to buy some freshly picked mandarin oranges as it’s the season and then continued on to New Norcia. There were fields of yellow as far as the eye could see, with the canola crop in flower:

New Norcia looked very forbidding on a miserable afternoon

St Josephs

There was a lot to see in New Norcia, but I missed the tour starting at 1.30 pm and in any case it was a long tour and it was drizzling. I continued on my way to Dalwallinu. I was booked in at the Wheatlands Motel for 2 nights in a “budget room”. This room has no ensuite and the facilities are across the car park in the old and abandoned town swimming pool!  I had been warned that they are a bit chilly at this time of year, so I certainly won’t be going out in the middle of the night!