CARNARVON - WILDFLOWERS - PART 2 (31 AUGUST - 3 SEPTEMBER 2014)

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

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.

CARNARVON - A HOLIDAY AND WILDFLOWERS - PART 1 (31 AUGUST - 3 SEPTEMBER 2014)

I suspect many may find the title of this blog a little odd.....a holiday!  Isn't life a constant holiday at the moment?  

No it's not, as I have explained before. It is 'life on the road', and given the fact that we had been static here in Carnarvon for two and a half months, we were interested to see how we would react to our four day break when we headed south to Port Denison to go looking for the renown WA wildflowers.  

The answer is easy. It felt no different from the holidays we had taken during our normal working lives. Even the unusual task (these days) of sorting and packing clothes, food and grog was almost fun.

It was great to be off the leash.  Off we went, through the barren plains south of Carnarvon

where cattle and sheep somehow manage to survive quite well normally in this rather bleak landscape.  I say normally, because this season the dry winter has forced many station managers to sent much of their herd south for agistment.  Large cattle road trains have been a constant feature of the traffic passing the end of The Plantation for some weeks now.

We took a break at the Overlander Roadhouse, a point approximately halfway along our trip of 500 kilometres, where I was more than pleased that this most unusual rig pulled in to allow me to take a proper photo. I had attempted to do so as we passed it. The result was abysmal.  The occupants of this vintage vehicle are obviously used to being the subject of attention...they gave us a big wave as I snapped away.

So after a quick munch and stretch of the legs we were off again. We had booked a cabin in the Dongera - Denison Holiday Park, one we know well from our previous visit. Liz, in particular was looking forward to catching up with the park managers, Pam and Johnno to swap notes and chew the fat over some aspects of park management.

And they didn't let us down. We had asked for a beach front cabin, and found that we had been assigned one of their large, luxury units....at staff discount rates no less.

Sunset drinks on the front deck. Luxury. There was only one real snag. The weather was less than co-operative. For our four nights in Port Denison, where a good sunset is as spectacular as any along the west coast, it was completely socked in with heavy cloud. We made the most of it in any event. Nothing was going to interfere with the pleasure of this short interlude of holiday luxury.

As we drove into town and past the Priory Hotel chalk board we were delighted to see that the Sunday night pizzas were on and that music would be provided by Warwick Trant. He had been the troubadour on the occasion we enjoyed the Sunday atmosphere of the Priory when here with the Vogts, and he is very good.

This time there was no 'who's driving' coin toss....we were both on holidays. The local taxi arrived right on time. What a delight is was to ride in a spotlessly clean cab with a white Anglo-Saxon driver who spoke good English and knew exactly where he was going (not that that is very far in Port Denison).

It was like a time warp. Same staff,















same table

and same old Warwick, who despite suffering from a shocking cold, entertained us royally. His last set, which included a five minute twelve bar blues piece, was outstanding (for a blues lover....yours truly!) The pizzas were up to scratch and the bubbles were fizzy and cold. We had a fine evening. It was a real treat to revisit a venue and enjoy it as much as we had the first time.



We had chosen to make Port Denison our base because it is relatively close to a large area of Western Australia which is know for its wildflowers. Mind you, I use the words 'relatively close' advisedly......the four recommended 'wildflower way' day trips out of Port Denison range from the shortest of 270 kms to a whopping blast around the countryside of just under 500 kms, a real 'view on the run' sortie.  

Like many things in life, good planning is important to maximise chances of success. We had already been in touch with the Geraldton Information Centre and were a little discouraged by their advice. It appeared that the unseasonably hot weather we had been enjoying in Carnarvon was widespread along the wildflower way.  The pink Everlastings, in particular, were beginning to burn off.  We knew when we left Carnarvon that our quest may be a close run thing indeed.

We had also been advised that the locations of good areas of blooms can be quite specific to the current season and may well change from day to day. This was all becoming much more difficult that I had imagined. Once again, I had fallen from the 'tourist brochure photograph' trap.  I had visions of swanning blithely through kilometre after kilometre of massed fields of flowers, such as those depicted in this Internet shot.

The reality proved to be entirely different. In an effort to maximise our chances, we made our first port of call the Port Denison Information Centre where the most helpful staff ran off the latest daily outlook flier. 

This highly detailed document, the product of reports collated from throughout the area on a daily basis during the season, provides commendable detail of flower types and the best locations in which to find them. This advice was also refreshingly frank about areas where the flowers were in decline.....a most impressive service, one we found emulated in other towns in the wildflower area. Armed with this update and a myriad of other brochures and maps, we sifted through all the various alternatives. Where to go? This choice was driven by another imperative.

Good old Murphy had descended on us yet again. Some 250 kms short of Port Denison on our southward trip, the cruiser's fuel filter warning light intruded on the calm of the morning. I did make much of the fact that Liz was driving at the time...she almost fell for the accusation that it had been her fault!

In any event, the light was stationary, a good sign (again a relative word). Previous experience and advice had taught us that we could travel another 1,000 kms or so without engine damage before replacing the filter. My concerns lay in the fact that this advice had always been general rather definitive. I was nervous. I hate warning lights, especially those which relate to a potentially catastrophic failure. An early morning call had resulted in the cruiser being booked into Geraldton Toyota at their earliest convenient time....mid afternoon.  

Great. Do we sit around until then and waste a precious day or take a punt and extend the 60 kms direct trip to Geraldton by 150 kms or so. The real issue was that if the light began to flash, it would be imperative to stop immediately. The prospect of arriving in Geraldton atop a tow truck was an unlikely but not impossible reality. 

Weighing up all the factors we decided on the trip out through Mingenew and the nearby (again relative) Coalseam National Park before making our way back to the Brand Highway through Walkaway and thence on to Geraldton. 

Obviously, given the tone of this missive to date, we managed without mishap, but I have to report that each kilometre I drove with that damned light on the dash was one of some tension. Bugger...this was supposed to be a highlight day. Liz was her usual philosophical self....easy when you are not ultimately responsible!





So off on the road to Mingenew we went, through the lush countryside of the upper whealtbelt, which was just such a change from what we had been seeing for the past two and a half months.












Stands of roadside wattle were showing the first flush of flowering, but these were not the blooms we had come to see. We can do that at home.










The outskirts of Mingenew finally (yet another relative use of a word....every kilometre was a long way for me today!) hove into view.







The entrance to the town is lined with a series of very picturesque roadside banners, all locally topical, of which this is one example. They differ front and back and are all extremely well done.










Beyond this we came into Mingenew's main street, an unremarkable avenue but for three things which stuck us.












This long row of CBH railway grain trucks left little doubt that Mingenew is central to a productive agricultural area. The local CBH silos are impressive.





 



And then we were also taken by the difference between the town's two hostelries where the rather grand Commercial Hotel










stands in stark contrast to the comparatively meek looking Mingenew Motel. As we drove back through this same town from the other direction we found that there is much more to it than the main street (as is usually the case) including the silos and an impressive sporting complex, but for now we were more intersted in finding the local tourist information centre.


This we did, to be told the sad news that our concerns about the demise of the pink Everlastings was correct, but that there were still a few patches of the 'yellows' to be found in the Coalseam National Park, some 30 kms to the north of Mingenew (and en route to Geraldton!) Almost, I suspect as a sop for my obviously crestfallen demeanour, the charming information lass did promise that we would not be disappointed with the other scenery on offer at Coalseam, the site of WA's first major coal discovery.




Off we went, along a road which quickly degenerated from a two lane bitumen carriageway to the sort of thing we were used to in outback Queensland. But at least the shoulders of this road were well graded and level with the hard surface. Heading bush during overtaking was no problem for us experienced travellers!









We were soon climbing into the hills of the National park












where the bitumen disappeared and we were bashing along on the dirt, but it was well graded and completely free of the dreaded corrugations. I suspect the volume of traffic along this road at this time of the year prompts regular grading attention. 


The lass at the Mingenew information centre was right in all she told us, including the best spots to go to see the remainder of the flowers. She was also correct about the spectacular views on offer and the fact that the 'pinks' were gone. What's that song title....'Two out of three ain't bad'? Nope, I wanted three out of three, but it was not to be.





From the car park at the top of the Coalseam range, we headed out along the nearby walking trail.  I was a man on a mission, a veritable wildflower bloodhound. Here were the first of them, a scattered paltry lot.  It has to get better than this, surely.










Well, marginally to start with on the edge of the path

and then a few more in the scrub, but still not the shimmering fields of colour I had expected.

As we neared the cliff top I could see that the bad news about the 'pinks' was sadly true. This patch was nothing more than blanched falling petals.











Ah, well, let's take in the cliff top views and hope they are worth the effort. Indeed they were. Here below us was the bed of the Irwin River, currently dry, a far cry from the torrents we had seen staining the ocean at Port Denison as the muddy water poured from the river mouth some months previously.

The view was equally spectacular looking to the north.









This area is the site of the first major coal find in WA. Discovered in 1846, the initial hopes for the deposits proved false and a major mine was never developed although for some years shafts were sunk and miners were active. 

As depicted in this trackside artwork, miners of the time would often spend their days off by climbing from the mine sites at the base of the cliff to spent time enjoying the same views as we were at the top of it, where billy tea and barbecued 'snaggers' was the picnic fare.




As we made our way back to the cruiser we did not came across any better displays than we had already seen.  Oh, well, let's try the lower areas of 'Miners Camp', a national parks camping ground where we may have better luck.





Not so. The yellows were still in bloom

but the pinks were definitely gone. We could only imagine what this thick blanket of flowers would have looked like a week before our arrival where all the white in this photo would have been a brilliant pink.

 



This was all that remained of them.














We came but we did not see.  It was time to ford the trickle that was the Irwin of this day






and stop briefly to gaze back across the river valley to the face of the cliff on which we had recently been standing

where the dark stains of coal can be seen amongst the strata of red clay.  So much for our first sortie in search of the elusive flowers of the west.





It was time to make our way west through the green fields of the northern wheatbelt to Geraldton. The fuel filter light was still unblinking....would we make it?






As I said earlier, you would be right in thinking that had we not done so the tenor of this missive would have been vastly different. I'll confess to being mightily relieved as I pulled into the service bay at Geraldton Toyota. It was their problem now.

As cruiser was fixed, Liz took the opportunity to make a number of shopping forays whilst we were in 'the big smoke'.  I was happy to wander around the nearby Geraldton docks, a pastime of which I never tire.





And I have to say that despite our lack of flower success, this sign near the loading by of the Geraldton post office did lift my spirits considerably. Couldn't be clearer!











So back to Port Denison and drinks on the balcony.  After a couple of individual photos 















to prove we were on absolute beachfront











we though we should have a crack at setting up our little camera on its wobbly tripod for a group shot. Well done, Liz.








By this stage I had become considerably more philosophical about our quest than I had been earlier. I decided that wildflower watching can obviously akin to a poor fishing outing when the experienced console themselves with the thought that "tomorrow is another day."