The musings of Bruce & Norma: 10/5/08

We got back from Broome and spent two days getting all that red dirt out of our clothes. The university was closed for the next week so some of our students went to Bali, some did a bus tour up the west coast, some stayed a few days in a house in Margaret River, one went to Melbourne to see some relatives, and the rest stayed in the P&O and just did more local things .

We wanted to get to the southwest again to see wildflowers since our last time was in the fall and there were no flowers to speak of blooming. Where we started on our stay was determined by Jessica and Todd because they found this wonderful hillside retreat (Tathra-Hill top Retreat) in the Blackwood River valley so nice that they bought us two nights there. That was very nice of them!! It was indeed a lovely spot as you can see from the two pictures below. The one on the left was the view out our patio doors down the hill. The one on the right is the view up toward the building. We are in the room on the extreme right, there is a smaller room in the middle and the owners are in the part on the left. It was quite a calming setting. Even though we were in peaceful locations in the Broome area, being with 36 other people in group situation does not quite make it relaxing.

The birds in the area were very interesting because they were mostly new to us. We had Ringneck parrots coming to feeder, which is the brown thing (looks like a house) on the right looking out of our patio doors. We put bread out in it and they would take a piece out with their beak put it into their foot and hold it and eat it. It was quite interesting to watch. We had some kind of Honeyeater (a small bird, yellow and grey and white) that zoomed all around

I could not get the birds to like my sitting in the chair on our deck with my camera so I walked down to the little restaurant just down the road that had a lovely garden and many birds. I also noted when we stopped there the day before that they were not afraid of the people. So I figured that they would tolerate me sitting there with my camera. The little ones were tolerant but fast, so that as soon as I just started to get focused they moved thus no little bird pictures. I have a number of the Ringneck parrots but they were not patient models either. They are a funny bird because one landed on the roof and walked along for a yard or so and then peered over the edge to see what I was up to and kept walking until it was past me and flew to the water in the garden. The parrot on the right is a Western Rosella and was less common and less aggressive than the Ringneck. I also was seeing a number of other interesting birds. It is a shame because I had some nice views of two Fairy-wrens. One the Splendid (There is a western species.) and the other was the Red-winged. Both are really spectacularly blue. I will put up a link so you can see what it is like even though I didn't get a photo.

The next day we visited the little town of Nannup about 12 km south of our place because rain clouds were moving through every so often. We considered a walk through some bush just up the hill from our cabin but showers were getting heavier so a walk didn't seem like a good idea. On the way to town, I snapped this picture of some trees with bright red flowers and backed by a hillside covered with yellow flowers. You just note the yellowish aspect to hill in this picture.

The whole area is hilly so there are mostly dairy farms, sheep, cattle and some lumbering. The lumbering is now mostly pine that is planted because it grows fast and makes good lumber. It is not native to Australia but does not spread, so it safe to grow here. The same was true in New Zealand. Both countries have native trees that produce super quality wood but the growth rates are so slow that using them for most building materials is not feasible.

Norma made an interesting find while in Mannup. We went into a bakery to look for something to take back with for the evening or the next morning. We were close to closing for the day so we struck up a conversation with the owner. He was a native Australian who married an American and had lived in California for about 20 years many of those in Winters, which is near Woodland, CA where Norma spent her early years. It was fun talking to him and his daughter who had just moved down to Australia because she could keep animals more easily than in California. At any rate it is a small world.

Our second day, we drove over to Mount Barker and took a more direct route across the countryside where we had not been before. It was mostly National Park and forest land for the first half at least. In one area, we kept seeing these lovely flowers so I got out to take a picture and Norma picked some. What she found are being held in her hand in the picture below and are all in the pea family. There are many many different kinds of peas down here and in fact some are poisonous. I don't think any these were.

We drove on to Mt Barker to taste some wines and see some wildflowers and that is what we did. We drove through national parks and forest before we came to Muir Lake and Nature Preserve. It is not much of a lake by MN standards (Notice I didn't bother to show you that picture.) but the flowers along the edge were quite lovely.

We found, through the serendipitous help of the man in Groundrey's tasting room, a flower tour on the edge of the Sterling Range National Park. We called, got listed and the result is three orchids shown below. We saw a total of 14 orchids in flower and three others from their leaves or buds. We had to use kangaroo trails in order to keep from crushing the orchids because you would find that once you saw them they were all around you. It was stunning. It was quite a trip and was the main impetuous for going there. I was happy as a clam! Hmmm I am not certain how happy clams are but rest assured that I was.