Happy 2020 , here we go . Christmas was spent with Emma , Mike & Pepper , and was very quiet for us.
The kayak got a bit of a run at the Serpentine River at Greenfields ( a suburb near Mandurah ) and of course Pepper was straight in there , loving it .
And here's one of the first sunsets for 2020 as well .
We were booked in for our repair at Ballarat in Victoria on 14th January , so we headed off on a 2 week drive across to the east . Shame that the bushfires had other plans for us , the Eyre Hwy beyond Norseman was closed due to several bushfires going nuts beyond there . The Highway was even closed for people coming to WA - unfortunately they were stopped at Caiguna with very limited supplies and very little , if any , fresh food - there were up to 250 people stranded there - truck drivers and travellers .
The temperatures were in the high 30's and we looked where we were headed and decided to stop at Merredin for the night and check the road closures in the morning - the swimming pool at the park was quite lovely and cooled us down nicely .
Due to the road blockages , we re-evaluated our plans and did some ringing around to try and find someone who could repair the van for us in WA . A stroke of luck , we found someone in Albany.
While at Merredin , we headed out & about , first stop was Totadgin Rock - we're back in the Wheat Belt region of WA and there's always a granite rock somewhere close .
This is one of the rock's custodian lizards keeping an eye on things .
Not wave rock , but this shows how they wear down along the edges due to the water coming off the rock breaking the granite down .
The bird came out for an aerial view of the rock , surrounded by wheat fields . the greener patches on the rock are moss gardens that burst to life after any rain event . There was one water hole that still had some water in it - that's the dark one in the photo's .
Merredin wheat silo's are also part of the silo art trail in WA .
Another surprise was the Solar Farm , approximately 500 acres are covered with solar panels on sun tracking racks . We were astounded with the size of it .
Not to be outdone , approximately 16 kilometres southeast of Merredin is the Collgar Wind Farm . It has 111 turbines spread out all over the countryside, here's some of them .
After a couple of days in Merredin , we headed off again taking as many back roads that we could , although any of the roads we took were pretty quiet traffic wise .
First town we drove through was Bruce Rock , great verandahs and old buildings .
Corrigin was our next stop for some lunch , we contemplated staying here overnight before moving on again .
We ended up at Dumbleyung again , having stopped here earlier last year , staying at the free camp there . After our hot start to the year , the temperature seemed to struggle to get above 25 degrees , overnight was getting down to 10 degrees . It seems a bit strange but we had the diesel heater going tonight - what happened to Summer ??
The sunset tonight was quite impressive given the colder temps - it tried to keep me inside , but I toughed it out and went for a walk to get some nice photo's.
I do like the salmon gums in the wheat belt , they look great , and looked pretty good at sunset .
A cool night meant we weren't in a rush to get up . Today we headed off to a lake - it was only 46 kms in a straight line , but we managed to go about 80 kms to get there . Long narrow roads , wheat stubble fields each side and Salmon Gums lining the roads .
Arriving at our lake about 11am , we parked and went for a walk before deciding this would do us for the day and night . Reading reviews in Wikicamps , people had mentioned the wind that comes up in the afternoon , looking at the lake and the pleasant breeze that was blowing , I forgot about the supposed strong winds , certainly didn't look to be a problem with the nice calm water .
This is Lake Ewlyamartup - not sure how you say that , I'll leave it up to your imagination .
The bird went for a fly around , checking out the lake .
Beside the lake there's a sculpture of a man & woman , a small child on the mans shoulders and a baby in the womens arms - it's aboriginal and a plaque tells the story of this lake being a place of food & water used by them . When you enter the water , you must throw some sand in the water and call out your name to let the spirits know who you are .
There's a toilet block and a boat ramp - apparently the lake is used for water skiing - needs some more water in it for that though .
There were plenty of these birds using the lake .
All around the lake are dead trees , killed off by the salt .
Plenty of bird footprints in the drying salt & mud .
One of the great things about salt lakes is the reflections seem to always be pretty good .
Beside the lake , surprise , surprise , is a stubble field , all that's left after harvest are lines of husk & cut stems . The narrow lines are where the wheat was planted .
Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XYtDNZGNkNkvhJOEoMcgiDfQb44eUxDN&usp=sharing
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