This was pretty much a rainy and cold day from start to finish. We decided to just have our rain jackets ready and see how we went.
When I started planning for this big trip the Stirling Ranges was a place that I already had in my head as somewhere I really wanted to get to in order to see the wildflowers. It turned out to be pretty disappointing for wildflowers compared to what we had already seen in the north of the state. This was probably because we couldn’t get a clear idea of where to look. Native orchid enthusiasts are very close lipped about where you can find the orchids because of the risk of people doing stupid things like picking them or digging them up. It still happens way too often. They do not survive taken out of location due to the need to have very specific growing conditions and also the need for specific fungi and pollenators to be present. It means that a tourist coming in to a community is unlikely to be trusted with information regarding where to go to see the rare orchids. It was pretty frustrating to see that people were seeing all sorts of interesting orchids in the Stirling Ranges on the days prior to our arrival, but we didn’t have access to information that would help us to find them.
The local tourist information booth at Mount Barker couldn’t offer any information at all, so we were on our own and decided just to hop into the camper in the ongoing rain and to take the road through the middle of the Stirling Ranges, stopping to walk and look if the weather was conducive and the tracks looked attractive. In retrospect I guess we probably should have booked in on a guided walk to enable us to see more. Mt Trio Bush Camp do them. We headed roughly north east from Mount Barker and eventually found ourselves on Red Gum Pass Road.
Our first stop was Red Gum Springs, where we took advantage of a brief break in the rain to do a short loop walk (no orchids). Backtracking to the main road again we stopped again on the corner of the Stirling Range Drive to check out a terrific patch of pea flowering creeper. While we were there we found a few lovely Donkey orchid plants.
Despite looking , there were no other orchids identified and we continued on, pulling in to various scenic lookouts for views of the ranges in between showers of rain.
We did find some more cowslip orchids along the way.
We tried to stop at the Moingup Spring campgound, but the area was closed- presumably because the area had been burned. There was a lot of burnt country on view along the road and this bit had not been spared. The little shelter there was clearly not going to shelter us from the rain while we ate our lunch, so we made do with parking on a corner and putting together lunch in the camper and then eating in the cab while the rain continued to drizzle down.
When we finally made it to the Bluff Knoll lookout and carpark we were met with ferocious winds, so we admired the views, spent some time picking out where the path went from where we stood, and wondered about the sanity of anyone out there on the track today.
We had seen what we thought were Xanthorrhoeas (grass trees) on the drive and saw them again here, but were puzzled by the strange flowers growing out from the base of the leaves. On investigation these were found to be a different plant altogether (Kingia Australis) – which is often mistaken for the more common grass trees. Apparently the strange brown flowers are the give away for the fact that this is a different plant, which only grows in South Western Australia. Like the Xanthorroea it is a very slow growing plant.
There was more beautiful metal cut work in the information shelter at the lookout.
The walk path faded away into the distance, tempting us to take at least part of the walk, but the weather had other ideas.
We did pick out some more orchids looking down from the platform.
Trevor was starting to feel quite flat, so we decided it was time to make tracks towards a home for the night and headed south once more, with our goal Porongurup Tourist Park which had come highly recommended.
On the way we came across the Castle Rock winery and, mindful of Evelyn and Craig’s recommendations, we sat in their warm tasting room for a while, trying some of their wines. Sadly, they had run out of their prize winning shiraz, which would have been our first choice of their wines. We found the Sav Blanc (“SB” in WA) reasonably attractive, but not enough to tempt us into buying there.
We booked in to the tourist park, pulling in to our space beside the Colwell and Sankauskas vans, and Trev had a sleep while I made myself at home in the camp kitchen, lighting the slow combustion stove and drinking cups of tea, while I wrote some blog posts and waited for the others to return home.
The camp kitchen is a lovely little spot. It is part of a brick building which houses the amenities as well. There is a full kitchen, with good equipment to use, a big TV to catch up on the news of the world and a little book exchange and choice of games to play. They had a number of different versions of a game where you choose a rock, and use the picture on the rock to help you tell a story.
We walked down the wet road in the dark to have tea at the local hotel (Only open for meals some nights and with a fairly limited menu) with Zita and Al, and shared a pizza between the two of us and some local red. What the pub lacked in presentation (pizza was served in a box) they made up for with a warm fire and a serving person with a huge personality.
We celebrated my birthday together with delicious chocolate cake when we returned home from the pub. It was the first night that we had all been together since the important event had occurred.
Luvapuzzle 