More on Dryandra

The back verandah was an ideal place to have dinner, watching the sun setting, as the kangaroos entertained us in front.

Unfortunately, the magpies in the area joined us in an attempt to steal our food. At one point, 5 of them were threatening to do just that. Someone had left a yellow frisbee on the table, a handy defensive weapon for us!

View from the verandah.

Next morning, we were off in good time with Kevin in the lead. First, we learned a lot about mallet trees. In the early days, the bark was used in the tanning industry, so the trees were extremely valuable:

Mallet bark.

We were also intrigued by the lichen on some of the other trees:

It’s now quite dry in the area, but the lichen survive with dew on the trees.

Next, a few wildflowers were spotted:

Fringe lily and two tiny bee orchids.

Cowslip orchids.

Trigger plants.

Kevin spotted a numbat running along in the bush, about 50 m away. Great excitement all round! It rushed into its hiding place in a hollow log. Kevin shone a torch inside the log and a few people managed to see it: not easy, as you had to lie down to look in. I only managed to see two little white eyes, which seemed to be trembling with fear, perhaps:

After that we stopped for another photo opportunity in an area covered in everlastings:

Close-up of everlastings, or paper daisies.

A group of fringe lilies.

A very unusual white fringe lily.

We had lunch on top of Contine Hill, where a local ranger, Peter Lacy, came to give us a talk about the history of Dryandra. My phone was threatening to run out of charge at this point, so I daren’t take many more photos:

I need to get hold of Kevin’s book!

Someone worked out that Kevin is 88 years old and he is full of energy. I am 9 years younger than him and was flagging before the day was out. Like my phone, I was running out of charge. In the end, I decided not to go on the evening excursion to Barna Mia to see the nocturnal animals in their sheltered enclosure. Annette and I had a quiet evening in front of the log fire instead.

Mandy and Bob (with whom we were sharing Wallaby Cabin) did go and reported back. Mandy does lovely crochet:

The blanket consists of rows of double crochet, with a treble into the row below, every 10 stitches.

Someone had carved one of the Barna Mia creatures on a door stop. 

For more about Dryandra, see:

https://dryandravillage.org.au/.