After the disappointment of day one, would day two be better? This was to be our last chance. We had decided to make our final day in Port Denison a 'lay day'....well at least that was Liz's plan. Mine was to head off to my old stamping ground and chase herring.
With maps, brochures and the latest advice sheets spread out before us, the conference began over breakfast.....where to go this time? We had been collared the previous evening by a bloke who was rattling on about the wreath flowers he had seen. Now that would be something, and we knew that they were not burnt off. We also knew that these plants are highly localised and unique and they became our focus.
We finally chose the option which would provide us with the best chance of seeing wreath flowers without having to drive a 400 kms round trip to do so.
The town of Morawa, just over 100 kms from Port Denison, came up trumps as far as all our criteria were concerned. We set off through the rolling hills to the east of the coast
past a few isolated mesa shaped hills
We finally chose the option which would provide us with the best chance of seeing wreath flowers without having to drive a 400 kms round trip to do so.
The town of Morawa, just over 100 kms from Port Denison, came up trumps as far as all our criteria were concerned. We set off through the rolling hills to the east of the coast
past a few isolated mesa shaped hills
and the sweeping green pastures which still seemed so foreign to us after our three months in the desert.
The farming centre of Morawa has been one of the beneficiaries of the controversial Western Australian programme 'Royalties for Regions'. This scheme demanded that a portion of mining royalties received had to be spent in country areas in return for the National Party support for the Barnett Liberal government (the current economic situation has meant that this cosy arrangement is now in tatters...surprise, surprise)
Morawa now has a brand new main street by-pass road
which was of little use to us. We were looking for the Information Centre which is in the main street.
Throughout this entire region all the towns make much of the fact that this is wildflower country. The 'flowers' symbol, seen here at the left of the photo of the town's information board, appears everywhere.
As with Mingenew, the service we received from the Morawa tourist information centre staff was exemplarly. "Yes, the wreath flowers are out exactly where you had hoped to find them. Just look for the sign on the side of the road."
Like a pair of King Arthur's knights seeking the holy grail, we were off on our quest. Our target area lay along another single lane road 35 kms north of Morawa. "If you reach Gunter Road, you've gone too far." "Right...Liz can you find Gunter Road on our local maps?" "Oh, bugger it, let's just go and trust our luck."
Our first surprise along the way came in the form of large salt pans, something which seemed quite incongruous in this rich grazing and cropping area. Surely this can't be the sort of country we are looking for.
It wasn't, although as you will see, wreath flowers like to have things rough. Eyes peeled, after 30 kms we finally spotted 'the sign'. It was of considerable help that we were not the only visitor to the area. The fact that another 4W drive was pulled off to the side of the road, apparently in the middle of nowhere, was a real give away, and very handy, because, as you can see, the sign is not large.
And sure enough, there they were, these incredible circular shaped, low lying wreaths of flowers, dotted along the barren, red shoulder of this isolated country road. I was over the moon....these cannot be seen anywhere else in the world!
Despite its small size, the sign was informative and confirmed the fact that these unique
plants can only be found in a very restricted area of the countryside. It also confirmed that, unlike most other plants, they like being bashed around.
Our erstwhile botanical informant of the previous evening had been in raptures over the fact he had seen a patch of four of these palnts....here there were over 150 of them stretched out along the roadside for two hundred metres or so. Did I feel superior...you bet I did! To continue my previous fishing analogy, it was another day indeed and I am the only one catching fish!
These really are increidible plants. Most stand alone in singular glory
and gradually add colour to their petals as they grow larger,
whilst others choose to congregate in a floral embrace.
Apart from the delightful beauty of these extraordinarily shaped plants, the fact that they thrive in such a relatively harsh habitat just adds to the wonder of them, or at least it did for me. As you can probably tell, I was enchanted. This made everything worth while....if I don't see another wildflower in WA, I am a contented man.
But the wreath flowers do not have it all their own way in the is extraordinary patch of roadside dirt.
We came across several other species which presented splendid colour
albeit as isolated single plants.
But fine as this all was I was still after massed pink everlastings.....we had been told that there may be a few patches on the road between Morawa and Perenjori, a small farming town some 40 kms south.
Time was marching on. We reluctantly farewelled the wreath flowers and backtracked to Morawa. "Eyes peeled, Lizzie, fingers crossed." And at last some success, limited though it was.
Just out of Morawa, on a country by-road leading to a roadworks dump we spotted our first and only patch of massed pinks.
Despite the fact that this was not the best display we could imagine, it was something.
We had at last found a smattering of pinks which were still in bloom.
That was the end of them. Despite swivelling heads and eyes wide open as we motored along to Perenjori, we did not spy another flower, of any sort. The metal blooms to be seen on the 'wildflower country' sign as we entered Perenjori seemed almost to be mocking us.
Ah, well, what does this town have to offer. More street art,
a somewhat typical main street with its pub and shops set aside from the remainder of the town by the railway line which runs through it on the opposite side of the road,
a fine welcoming monument at the southern entrance to the main street,
and, on the road out of town towards Three Springs, this quaint and quite striking church building, its almost Spanish style at odds with its location in the Australian bush.
On the final leg of this day's trip we did manage to photograph a few of the roadside bushes which are also touted as wildflowers, but not of the kind I had sought.
Nevertheless they did add some colour
to the return leg of our journey back to Port Denison.
By now we had travelled over 1,000 kms on our quest. The lay day we had planned for tomorrow was definitely in order. The weather was closing in again, so plans for drinks on the balcony were abandoned. Chef Pierre made full use of the camp kitchen BBQ and we cracked a fine bottle of red.
Because of a prior group booking for the beach front cabins, we had to move to one in the second row for the final day of our jaunt. This was a bit of a pain, but we had no choice. Having said that, these smaller cabins are very well laid out. We were just as comfortable in this as we had been in the larger, seafront version.
And, to borrow heavily from the parlance of the real estate agents, we still had 'sea glimpses'.
Liz had a great day relaxing with her massed reading material. I went fishing with a light heart and great expectations. After all, this is where I pulled over sixty herring from the clear waters in two previous ventures.
You can guess the rest. Wrong tides, wrong weather, wrong winds and bloody WA blowfish, the bait ravaging scourge of this part of the coast when they have congregated....and they had. I managed one herring in two hours, a fish which must have either been a piscatorial version of Usain Bolt or so starving it muscled the swarming blowies aside to grab the bait before they did.
Not happy Jan, but at least I had been in the great outdoors having a crack. Despite the deteriorating weather, Liz was determined to have a last drink on a balcony
before I finally had some success in my quest for local fish. The Port Denison harbour side cafe does a great feed of fish and chips! (and we were getting pretty good at 'selfies')
We had had a really good break, but it was time to return to Carnarvon and reality. We had hear that it had been raining From Wooramel onwards....at last some relief from constant watering and dust awaited us, despite the challenge of cooking the sausage sizzle as previously reported.
We shared the highway home with some monsters heading south. The mining boom is definitely over for some companies. From our vantage point at The Plantation we have recently seen semi after semi growling their way southward under the weight of massive pieces of mining equipment.
Large vehicles were not our only highway companions. As she often does, out of interest or boredom, Liz counted the number of caravans we passed as we travelled north.
In the 350 or so kms between Port Denison and the turn off to Denham and Shark Bay at the Overlander Roadhouse, the tally of southbound caravans was over 200! Even we were staggered. In fact, during this trip, a single sedan or 4W drive travelling towards and past us was the absolute exception. The great southern migration was well and truly under way.
At least things should be much quieter 'at home' in Carnarvon, and they were, and should remain that way until the beginning of the school holidays, which, in real time, is tomorrow, when again the hordes will stream north out of Perth in search of some relief from their wintry weather.
By the time we pulled into our van site we had covered almost 2,000 kms. We were beginning to become real Western Australians. Was it all worth it? Yes it was, for the wreath flowers if nothing else. And, ever the optimist, I remain hopeful that the cool weather and heavy rains in the Great Southern will provide some wild colour when we return to that part of the State in a few week's time.
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