Day 76
Monday
17 September –
Kalbarri – Northampton – Yuna – Mullewa - Pindar
We managed a decent sleep in, not waking until 7.10am. I think the subdued light caused by the cloud cover helped considerably. Once we were awake however, we got moving. Bed and breakfast complete, I went for a shower, while Paul moved the van and car to the boat ramp carpark across the road and loaded up. When I returned, he went for his shower. I took some last pics of the Murchison River and a lone pelican, before we loaded ourselves into the van and began the trek once again.
Our first destination was the Pink Lake in Port Gregory, about 60km from Kalbarri. Apparently, this is one of the must dos on a Chinese tourists WA list. 10km from the Port Gregory Road we saw our first flash of pink, it was a hot musk pink. I have never seen a lake, that is supposed to be pink, this pink before.
I had mapped out the lookout to head to, but as we passed a parking sign, we realised we would have a view from it, as long as there was a path through the bush and there was. We pulled in and got out and began walking. I used a cairn of rocks to stand on for an overhead view and then we continued to move closer to the water’s edge. We couldn’t get right up to it though, as it became rather muddy.
Paul was keen to get back into the car, as it was very windy and cold. We had even had a spot of rain on the drive down, which had me seriously contemplating jumping ship and making my own way north.
We continued on the Port Gregory Road towards Northampton, passing through plenty of farmer’s fields, some yellow with canola. One place was obviously producing Geraldton wax, as they had rows of bushes in different shades of pinks. The roads and paddocks were bordered by colour, what is probably weed, but the little sprays of colourful flowers added a nice touch.
We passed through Northampton, before taking a left and heading for the small farming hamlet of Yuna. We parked the van at a siding and went in search of the free camp. We passed a garden full of paper daisies and a tree full of red tail cockies, before locating the hall and having the ah huh moment, we had been here before, though only for a lunch stop.
We moved the van up to the parking area, unloaded the car, made lunch, got changed into warm clothes and then transferred us and our stuff to the Getz to go in search of wildflowers. We drove towards Mullewa, on the Tenindiwa Road and there was plenty of carpet colour to be seen. A quick moving echidna, had us coming to a halt, me jumping from the vehicle, before it was stopped, to chase after it. It hunkered down on the side of the road, as I approached and I took my photos and left it in peace.
We continued on to the town of Mullewa, followed the tourist bureau sign and parked nearby. We asked the questions every tourist in town was asking, “where can we see the wildflowers?”, collected a map and returned to the car.
To see the wreath flowers, the main attraction and reason for coming, we had to head 30km east of Mullewa, to the small town of Pindar, from there it was a further 10km on dirt. It was corrugated, despite being graded on Friday, but only for the first few km’s and then it was an easier drive. We joined the line of traffic parked by the side of the road and then left the car to go and explore. There were hundreds of the Lechenaultia macrantha on display, some perfectly round, some with flowers around the edge, others with them in a mound, some white, some pink. There was every variation you could imagine and they were all quite beautiful.
Once we had seen all we could, we returned to Pindar, pulled up in a layby and proceeded to make our lunch. We couldn’t have the door open, as the flies were relentless. When we finished, we returned to Mullewa, stopping in at the Our Lady of Mt Carmel to check out the old Priest House and the Catholic Church attached to it. They were impressive stone buildings and internally there were large wooden buttresses to hold up the curved roof and some picturesque stained glass windows.
From the church, we drove to the starting point of the Railway walking trail. We left the car and began to follow the path through the bush. The flies were giving us the pips and we had to resort to snapping off a small tree branch to keep them at bay. As a result, we didn’t complete the whole walk. We saw an old rusty water tank and a number of trucks and then returned to the car, to make the journey back to Yuna.
We had a couple of stops along the way, checking out the carpets of colour, mostly yellow and white. We also took in the patchwork of fields, delineated by lines of trees, green and yellow rectangles weaved between them.
Once back in Yuna, we settled in for the late afternoon. School was out, but there were still cars in the carpark. I fiddled around, before sitting down with the computer to go through the photos taken for the day. Paul put salad together and left me in charge of cooking the salmon, which I did and then we ate.
We discussed where to from here, Paul opting for the return home, insert a very sad face here. I am in no way ready to head back, but I can’t put off the inevitable I suppose and it will give us a little extra time at home to do “stuff’.
Dad rang to check in and we had a laugh, as Aunty from England had been on the phone very concerned for Paul’s health, after seeing all the wreaths on Facebook. We let them know we were heading back and would organise to collect Yogi when we were settled.
I returned to the tourist mags, reading up on the different wildflowers and then it was time to head to bed, the last one.
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