14/10/18 Southern Flowers

  Okay another day , another circuit , this time the Southern Circuit - another 130-140 klm drive through and around the wheat fields . The first couple of items on the list were Mullewa cemetery - we don't do cemeteries usually and today was no different , then a local hall that needed some maintenance - no doubt a thriving meeting place for functions , dances & weddings in it's day . The next stop was an interesting one - Butterabby Graves . This was a site of some graves resulting from a clash of cultures - 2 white settlers were killed and 5 aborigines were hanged for the murders . The shelter was another one for the laser cut steel and shows the faces of all the men - it was hard to see the silhouettes when you were just under them , but when photographed they showed up beautifully .

 Leaving this rather grounding place , we headed for somewhere we'd been to about 3 years ago - Coalseam Conservation Park . On the way what wasn't wheat , was Canola , and there was plenty of it as well .

  Further along we found a breast cancer sign and this interesting creation .



   Entering the gravel road into Coalseam Cons Park , we were immediately struck by the corrugations , and there were plenty them . 7 Klms later we'd pulled off to a camping area/lookout that gave us views over the river valley below .

 Yellow everlasting daisies were greeting us , the white ones had all but finished , but made some contrast

 After wandering around through the flowers for 30-40 mins , we headed down to the river and then up the other side to the lookouts .

  There wasn't much water in the river and it definitely wasn't flowing . Before heading to the lookouts , we went down to the river and went for a walk along the riverbed .



  Back up to the lookouts and we were greeted by more yellow everlastings , last time we were here there was nothing - we were too late , all the flowers were finished - what a contrast .

 Views down over the river and into the distant wheatfields .

 Several other flowers appeared - making a change from yellow !!

 We had lunch in the ute because the flies were dreadful , then headed back to the circuit again .
The mauve / grey / blue plant had certainly taken over in this field - there was more than 100 acres of it !!

  Next was Tardun Hall - an old hall made of corrugated iron , pieces of the roof & eaves were missing , doors had fallen off , it was a shame , but that's progress for you .
 There's also an old shop - long since shut - and this old ute .

 Next was the Christian Brothers Agricultural School - another impressive building designed by Monsignor Hawes - the Catholic Priest - this was from the gates , there is no public access . The farm is the largest school in the world - in it's heyday it was 18,000 acres !!!!

 No money wasted on corners here .

 Next was Pindar , a tiny village with a rather large wheat storage silo , a 2 storey hotel , couple of houses & a shed . There's an area where they let the wildflowers grow freely and hope the fabled Wreath Flower will grow - apparently it grows in freshly disturbed ground - needless to say we didn't find one !!

 Across the Mt Magnet Rd there's a sign saying Wreath Flowers 9.3klms along Beringarra - Pindar Rd . Well we were a bit sceptical , but went for a drive just in case . After 9klms we rounded a corner onto a long straight section of road , there were a lot of start posts with streamers on them - we had arrived . We found this blue flower first , then stumbled across the Wreath Flower !!

 It's a curious plant , growing no more than about 150mm high , but up to a metre wide , mostly 200-500mm .

 Found a heart shaped one as well .

 There were hundreds of them , both sides of the road and stretched for over 400m .

 This is the view from above .

 Back into Mullewa and around to Church of our Lady of Mt Carmel , and beside it is Monsignor Hawes residence , now a museum . This church is another of his designs .

 That's it for today , we are totally wild flowered out after 2 days checking them out !!
From here we are heading to the coast for a few weeks to chill out some more and take care of a few jobs that need doing , so blogs may be quiet again . Here's a map link : - https://drive.google.com/open?id=12dq1LR7W3CnuC7o5f_pqxDl3zCwUwOiQ&usp=sharing

12/10/18 Leaving the outback

 
  Yalgoo soon disappeared in the rearview mirror and we headed west to Mullewa . The roads are straight out here , no wasted space on corners . The wildflowers were coming at us more regularly - after all we are going into Wildflower Country . The harshness of the outback softened slowly , more trees & shrubbery lined the road .

 I mentioned the straight roads , it kept going & going .

 After about 40 minutes driving we had arrived in wheat country , and there was lot's of it , going on for kilometre after kilometre .

  We started to see a low growing mauve/blue/grey flowing plant that looked like it was spreading everywhere beside the road.

 Before too much longer we had arrived into Mullewa , found the park and set up . We decided to do the shorter of the wildflower drive loops - the Northern Loop - so packed lunch and headed out .
  The road was the original road to the Murchison area , one stop was at Wolya Well , an important stop for water along the way . There were lot's of yellow everlasting daisies still flowering , and the remains of some white .

 The mauve/blue/grey plant was increasing in number and space .

 Then it was all over the place , must be it's time to shine .

 Many other native shrubs are coming out in flower as well .

 We found the mauve/blue/grey plant was a surprise - the flowers are actually white , the mauve/blue /grey are just window dressing to attract the insects for pollination .

  The drive took us to the Greenough River and Noondamurra Pool. There was water in the river and small fish , it was an important place for the aboriginies , being a more permanent water hole . Like most rivers in WA , they tend not to flow unless they've had sufficient rainfall - generally they're dry and running underground .
  From here we turned not a gravel road that had the first lot of Smoke Bush that we'd seen this year , also this pink flowering shrub as well .

 The smoke bush makes a real statement - Look at me !! A real standout amongst the greenery .

  Bindoo Hill Nature Reserve was next and this is where we saw the most flowers - the road in was supposed to be a no through rd , but we followed it all the way around the boundary and met up with the gravel road a bit further down the road . We found flowers of all colours and styles - excellent !

  The reserve gave way to wheat fields all around , those that weren't wheat were canola . The drive has information boards at strategic locations , along with the mandatory laser cut steel figures . The info boards have notes about the early history of the area and make the drive an education as well . The only detracting thing was the flies - there were thousands of them and they wouldn't leave you alone , so standing outside and reading the boards was out of the question - if you couldn't get close enough with the ute , you just didn't read them !!
  Further down another road we found our mauve/blue/grey plant again - this time it was in several different colours .

Last call before the Pioneer Cemetery was a section called the Waterfalls - again not flowing , but had some pools of water . The waterfall section was a drop of about 2m in the rock bed to another pool , it would be great with water flowing but if water was flowing , you probably wouldn't have access to the gravel road - they close the roads to protect them from the vehicle damage when they get saturated .

 And with that done we headed back to the van after a long but satisfying day . Here's a map link - have a look at it in satellite view , it will show the wheat/ canola fields : - https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HL5DzUCq3Qss3piSSptJCPvXMnuD6Djp&usp=sharing