Canning River bushwalk

At 7.30 am, the Bushwalkers assembled at the car park of the Lo Quay River Cafe for a walk in the Canning Regional Park: a popular spot on a Sunday morning. Paddy was in charge, limping a bit with his gammy foot. This was a new walk on our repertoire and I was wearing summer walking sandals: a poor choice because of all the sand and twigs underfoot. It was an interesting walk, some of it right beside the Canning River with its wetlands full of bullrushes.

At the halfway point, we came across the Sikh Cemetery. This was the spot where Sikh funeral pyres used to be held, in defiance of the law forbidding cremations in the first decades of the Swan River Colony. The most commonly used wood for the pyres was sheok, which burned the hottest of all the local trees. You need a lot of wood to burn a corpse.

There are numerous information boards in the vicinity:

Returning to base, we enjoyed our late breakfast under a tree. We sat there for a long time, discussing everything from the latest scams and how to avoid them, to holidays in Russia and China. Lutz liked to keep phone scammers talking, in order to waste their time and annoy them, he said. We also mentioned the recent TV programme about the Cambodian compounds, where kidnapped Chinese were being forced to set up sophisticated scams, following a set script which could be instantly translated into the language of any rich country. Beware, everybody!