We are on holiday!

Tuesday 30th August 2022

It was nice to sleep in a bed for a night! The pub must have been reasonably quiet, there wasn’t much noise upstairs at all! We wrangled together some breakfast, as best you can in a room with minimal facilities! Then left the pub to check out the town. Next door to the pub is a gallery/cafe, which has really beautiful art by a local artist, Helen Ansell, and a lovely range of treats, gluten free and otherwise! ☺️ We looked over the beautiful paintings, of native plants, birds and animals often with a background in the indigenous dot painting style – I really loved them! Then sat outside with coffee and muffins. I popped into the tourist office to join the queue of other travels looking for the best flower spots. The girl behind the counter rattled off a list with map and highlighter in hand, obviously for the millionth time that week, and off we went! Our first stop was to the town lookout, and a 2.3 km loop through bushland. The walk was nice enough, but a bit underwhelming considering we were there for wildflowers. Some nice patches though, and loads of fringe Lillies. She had pointed us this way to see some orchids, of which we saw none. Though we rushed it a bit towards the end as the kids got tired, so we probably just missed them. We ducked back into the pub because I had left my phone charger plugged in! Annoying, but also surprising that in 12,000km that is the first time. Probably because we haven’t stayed in rooms that often!!

We then headed south out of town. I had asked for some locations of the wreath flower – which is the iconic WA wildflower country species and I thought we should see it. There was a location in the general direction we were heading, approx 10km down a side road. It took me back to plant collecting days, driving slowly along a road, scanning for a plant! The location was of course given away by the presence of a couple of other cars stopped on the side of the road! The flowers are quite lovely – I would happily grow them in our garden! We got a couple of photos, then headed back to the main road, towards Coalseam conservation reserve.

The roads we were driving are all part of wildflowers self drive tours – there are designated stops with information signs to read, as well as pink ribbons tied up on the road side where a plant of significance has been spotted. For the most case you are driving through wheat, canola and lupin farms though, so the native plants are limited to the roadsides. Aside from the wreath flowers we didn’t make any additional stops. If you had the time I guess it could be quite fun to hunt down different flowers, though I think I would prefer a walk in a nice reserve!

We arrived in the conservation reserve in time for lunch. I had read that Coalseam was the ‘holy grail’ for wildflowers in this region. As the name suggests, there is a seam of coal running through the area. Mining activities took place in the early 1900s but were considered not profitable enough, and so the land was left alone. We stopped first at a picnic area next to the river and felt pretty disappointed to see the flower display was extensive stands of cape weed, sour sob and Paterson’s curse! It comes back to that knowing I guess – it is of course beautiful, but not so much if you look at all those flowers as problem species! The kids had great fun chewing on sour sobs though, and I think it was probably a highlight for them! 😂

We moved on to the miners campground to find somewhere a bit nicer for lunch. The picnic area was also mostly weedy here, so we dined at a table surrounded by cape weed! After lunch we decided to try one of the shorter walking tracks, and thankfully, after crossing the river, we were able to see the sights of the reserve! There are extensive stretches of daisies in pinks, yellows and whites, making a stunning carpet across the landscape. There is a longer walking trail there we didn’t really have time to attempt with kids in tow, so we decided I would do the walk and Richie could meander with the kids. The 3.2km walk goes through more stretches of daisies, up to a plateau that looks over the park, then back. The highlight for me was actually seeing splendid fairy wrens in their full bright blue spring plumage – spectacular! Richie also had a great time bird watching, Seeing both splendid and white winged fairy wrens, and various other species, while the kids played with flowers. The bird diversity is pretty great, through the wattle and eucalypt scrub. I made it back by 3:30, which considering we had to find somewhere to camp, was pretty late! The campground there would be lovely to stay at, especially for the bird watching, but we really wanted to be a little closer to Perth.

We drove in southwards, headed towards Three Springs- a small wheat farming town (as these all are), with free camping at the sports grounds. We arrived around 4:30. The camping area was packed with caravans, and initially we tried to find a space amongst them all, but then realised other vans had spilled over to around the footy oval, so we popped over there for a bit more space, and some slightly softer ground for the tent pegs! We would definitely have front row seats for the Saturday game! 😆 The place is great as far as the kids are concerned – two playgrounds in close walking distance! They also allow fires, with wood available on site. We had a pretty easy night – pasta for dinner, then bed. The evenings are much colder now, and I am missing sitting outside in the warm air enjoying the night sky! Tomorrow we will have to light a fire to stretch the evening out a little!