Showing posts with label bushwalks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bushwalks. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Camping in the south-west.

A cute crab at Yallingup.

We spent a very relaxing 3 days in a few spots we'd not been to before. Spent a night at Yallingup Caravan Park, as it was the only place we could stay near the coast with a dog in tow. It was very noisy with a steady amount of traffic going past until just after midnight, then starting again at 5 am for the early surfers.
In the morning we went and wandered about on the rocks up the road from town, pretty amazing. Very good way to wake up.
From there, after a great beefburger at the Yallingup shop near the tav we went just up the road to Ngilgi Cave. I was amazingly relaxed about descending into the cave..thought I'd be more nervous but I think learning a bit about geology has made me well assured that the area we were in is very tectonically stable!! It was beautiful in there and about 21 degrees C, a pleasant coolness after the warmth of jumping around over rocks a little earlier. It has a very easy way around inside with handrails and lots of spots to stop.


Our next place along the way was to Conto's. Paul had visited a rocky coastal area there few years ago that he wanted to get a better look at. Our good ole car took us along the bumpy road out to Merchant Rock where we spent a good hour or more checking out some fascinating chunks. There were some intrusions (in the rocks) that were quite interesting. People have died there rock fishing so we stayed well clear of the slippery rocks near the edge.
I love rock pools so I did have a bit of a nose around some of those.
I was pretty impressed by seeing anemones in some of them - it's the first time I've seen them since I was 9.
One rocky pool we saw had hundreds of mosquito larvae but also plenty of crabs. That seemed odd.


Finally we made our way to Sue's Bridge, on Sue's Road (between Brockman and Vasse Highways) to spend the night. It was a well set-up campground, private car bays with fireplaces (not to be used in this extreme fire danger period), tables and nearby toilets. The river was quite close so we took our water-loving dog and ourselves down for a dip. Poor Gruntle had been in the car a lot as we weren't allowed to take him into any of the national parks so he was very pleased to get in and have a good swim around. The Blackwood River is still looking pretty good in this area. Some of the trees are very big, very tall and pretty amazing to look at.

Next day we slowly packed up and went to Busselton with the idea of going to the Busselton Jetty fish gallery at the end of the jetty but the timing was all wtong so we took the dog for another swim, this time in the ocean and headed for home.

Not a jot of gardening in site..heh.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Kangaroos can be clumsy.

The other day we went for our Sunday bushwalk (or bush stalk, depending how energetic we are). A little way along a track we found a dead kangaroo. There was no sign of blood or damage to it, and it didn't even have any flies or ants on or near it, so it must have died quite recently before we arrived. I suspected its neck was broken from the angle of it.
Upon further looking and thinking, we suspect that it must have come bounding down the hill along the track and messed up its footing as it tried to jump over a log, as it's bottom jaw was all exposed and the bush it was in was squashed down a bit. It was pretty skinny and old looking so I think it just got unlucky and bashed its head on the big long next to the track and broke its neck.
It was quite bizarre. P dragged it over to the other side of the big log so it could be a meal for the many little beasties that do that job in the bush. It was really odd to see a whole 'roo, no blood or obvious damage. Poor thing.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Ashendon Road off Mount Dale Road.


Trigger plant.
Out beyond Midgigooroo National Park there are amazing exposed granite rocks. These are sacred sites so no public access is allowed, but some of the surrounding forest is well worth wandering around to look at some of the wildflowers.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Gombok Sculpture Park.




Today while the sun shone we went for a drive to Gombok Sculpture Park in Middle Swan, to see our friend Sara's sculpture.
It was a quick drive up the Roe Highway, almost to the very end of it. It was even past the airport!
There were some very cool sculptures up there. We stood Sara's piece up - it had blown over in the strong winds yesterday. I think we left it pointing the wrong way, though!?
Gruntle even got to have a run around. He was quite interested in a few of the sculptures, too.
We found another spot for him to runaround, and we had a cup of tea, off Bailey Road in Mahogany Creek.
We treated ourselves to a Judge's "famous" hamburger at the Parkerville Hotel. It was very tasty; with chips and salad it was quite a meal.
There are still some fairly chunky marri and tuart trees up that way. Good to see tree holes that black cockatoos would fit in - hopefully there are some nesting there.

It was good to see a few wildflowers out too. There was a beautiful Daviesia with dark red and yellow flowers, tiny ones along the jagged edges. Gorgeous and spiky. The Daviesia genus are pretty amazing plants. They are very tough, and have sharp points on the small, stiff leaves. The flowers are small but quite brightly coloured. There was a fair bit of Hovea pungens around in full bloom, too. You can see the striking purple spikes of small purple pea flowers from quite a distance.
It was a very pleasant Sunday drive. And a little bit cultural. Aah.

There's actually been a decent bit of rain the last couple of days. Like winter should be, almost. It's still way below average, though. The dams are still less than 20% capacity.