20/10/19 Magnets & movies

   Leaving the wildflowers behind , we head into the outback to sample what's on offer . The drive took us to Mt Magnet for a few days . From Mullewa & the multitude of wheat , canola & barley fields , to claypans , rocky desert , mulga & breakaways .
  Mount Magnet is a typical gold mining town - what remains after the haydays of the gold rush - but don't think it's over , there are plenty of active gold mines still going strong .
  The older buildings have been looked after , this one is the Shire Council office .
 

  Self explanatory this one - it's open whenever he's there and closed whenever he isn't - seems he has a sense of humour , he has a sign in the window stated this .

 This is one of the 3 hotels in town that are still operational - not sure where they get the clientele from though , the town doesn't seem large enough for one , let alone 3 !

 This is another one about 200m up the road .

 There's a drive that takes you to various sites , this is the view from Warramboo Hill Lookout to one of the mines just northwest of town . Colours in the pit wall are quite varied .

  Next stop up the road was the Amphitheatre - a stand of Laterite Rock that is a lot harder than the surrounding rock . There was an interesting shape a hole in the rock .

 This is the Amphitheatre - it is believed that it was once a waterfall - good imagination !



  We walked around and climbed the side section to get an idea of what was there , the top level is mainly flat with small scrubby trees growing out of the rock . Kangaroos & goats like the security of the caves & cliffs . There's not much in the way of ground cover , it's mainly rock & occasional spinifex & gravel .
 On the hill behind where the above photo was taken were some caves in the upper layers .

 The colours of the outback are quite vivid and there's a broad range from white to red & green .

 Every now & then there will be a burst of pink from a few hundred / thousand tiny pink flowers . It is quite a contrast when there's nothing else growing in the bare ground .

 Previous flowering ground covers are now going to seed , this one looks like the stuffing from a pillow .

Next stop / drive by was Lennonville Cemetery and town site . There's the old train platform still in place , the cemetery is basically a fenced off very rocky section of flat ground , and the town site has been removed , mainly due to the current mining nearby - seems all the old gold mines are being revisited with all the newer technology extracting the remaining gold .
  There's a movie being filmed here at the moment " The Furnace " , so there's plenty of activity in town with all the extra people here . It is also employing a lot of the locals as well which is good for the local economy .
 Filming was supposed to be happing at The Granites - a large area of breakaways just north of town . We have been into areas like this before at Cue , Meekatharra and other spots in the southern areas . They are all similar , but different , this was quite good with access tracks taking us all around for about 8 kilometres , it was a great drive around and we emerged from the bush via a network of tracks a bit closer to town .

  There's a variety of rock , granite & sandstone mainly , sculpted into various shapes and caves , white seems to be the main underlying colour .

  As we drove back there was a small bush in the middle of the track , flowering quite happily .

 These are The Granites from above , highlighting the colours of the outback .

 That covers our 3 days here , the Great Northern Highway goes through town and we were amazed how many triple road trains went through all day and some of the night , a very busy road .

 Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HRQFZricowHZwwbkfa1_IHPai8mwnr0G&usp=sharing

16/10/19 Flies , flowers & fast cars

 Inland we go , Mullewa , while not being far away from Geraldton , was as far as we decided to go . It was the last weekend of school holidays so we decided to stay here for a few days , might just sneak watching the Bathurst 1000 in as well .

 We were here last year at a similar time and we followed the wildflower trails north & south then , so we only had a look at a couple of spots . One was Bindoo Hill Nature Reserve , it was pretty spectacular last year , but there hasn't been as much rain this year , so things were not as good . Here's a selection of what we saw . The flies were very friendly here as well .

 The difference this time - orange sand !!

 We saw this lovely orange flowering bush and took the photo , upon closer inspection there are 3 black & orange bugs chewing away at the orange petals , leaving the yellow smaller petals / bud - must be tasty !!

 Some were smaller than most - this one only a couple of millimetres across .

 Some of the seed pods were a nice colour as well .

 One of the late afternoon sun peering through the clouds .

 This was inside the caravan park .

 The wildflower walk is a 2.8klm walk around the eastern hill beside town , known for lots of flowers and types . We mainly found these everlastings and a few others .

  There's also a few different sculptures as well .

 We then came across this tiny yellow flower , different to the other everlastings .

 It created a yellow carpet over the ground .

 Another shot from the park , this is out our window .

  I watched Bathurst and thoroughly enjoyed it - haven't done that for quite a while !!
Monday we headed off again , but that's another story , here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1w7OZS13SDgkY3eU_A88dB6CtYyAEjccs&usp=sharing

15/10/19 Flowers and crystal ball

  From Carnamah we headed back to Geraldton to sit out the school holidays , as a bonus it was warmer and we could ride the bikes around to get some exercise . 

  One of the days we weren't polishing the van or cleaning the ute , the esplanade called us - so we went for a look again . The water is a beautiful colour here and the winds were kind , not blowing to Geraldton's usual standard . At the end of the Esplanade there's a viewing platform designed to resemble the old pier that has been removed - it's a great place to view the ships moving in & out of the harbour .

 This is the opposite view back into the harbour from the viewing platform .

 This is from the harbour viewing platform , it's a great area to sit & watch from .

 Further north there has been plenty of money spent resurrecting the waterside areas with new wide pathways , beautiful grassed area's , Bbq's and seating . Believe me when I say it's a huge improvement , making it a much more pleasant area to use .

 And here's the crystal ball , well alright , a water filled sphere anyway - it's about 1metre in diameter and create's a great focal point .

 This is Moore Point , out where we are staying - it's the most westerly point in Geraldton , so it can be very windy .



 The small headland is Separation Point and has a reef area extending from it . The view is looking back to the south .



 This part of Geraldton is probably the older section and looking east .



  While we weren't cleaning & polishing we did go for a drive back to the south east . Finding Burma Road Nature Reserve along the way was a bonus - seeing it has access tracks was even better . We headed into the reserve on some sandy and overgrown tracks , the further we went in the better it got .  Wildflowers aren't finished yet , we managed to find quite a selection . It probably helped that they burned one side of the track last year , plenty of regrowth and new plants to flower . Everlasting Daisies are in their trillions , as you will see in the following photo's . Most of the flowers aren't very large , but what they lack in size , they make up for in numbers !

 Grass Trees also featured quite prominently in the last section we drove through . As you can see the ground is mainly white sand , and we are in about 40 kms from the coast .

 After the nature reserve we headed around to Ellendale Pool - you can camp here for $5 a head . The temperature was 38 degrees and we sat and had lunch in the ute as the flies would have eaten it before we could've !!

  From here we slowly made our way back in a round about trip through wheat , barley & canola fields , getting back to Geraldton where the temperature had dropped to 26 pleasant degrees .

  Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ALdCzsmj4doo4DZbsotbuD00-o4acs0e&usp=sharing