We are on holiday!

Wednesday 31st August 2022

It’s definitely getting colder! This morning saw us dig out the bag of scarves, beanies and gloves that was tucked away when we reached northern Australia! I cooked french toast for breakfast, inspired by the purchase of some rather solid feeling Woolworths gluten free croissants, that were begging to be cooked!

We headed into the tourist office in the main street, and were given a set of instructions of were to go, that included ’33km east on ### road for this flower, and so on! The wildflower country tourism focus here is heavily dependent on roadside flora, in an otherwise intensely farmed region. I do wonder if their roadside management is any better that we see at home – constant disturbance and spraying, or if they also battle to maintain any native values in their roadside areas. Given the tourism appeal relies almost completely on roadside management (and abandoned mines) I hope they have some good management guidelines!

We decided to give the roadside flora viewings a miss and drove to Dookanooka Nature Reserve, a small reserve about 17km south west of town. This is another ex-mining area (I think mica?), unsuitable for farming. We took a pretty random walk through the reserve, at times along tracks and bush bashing other parts. It would be a lovely spot to camp – probably because council requests people don’t camp there (though obviously people sometimes do), so it would be lovely and quiet! We didn’t see the carpets of daisies this area seems to be famous for, but instead many other interesting shrubs and forbs, including a few orchids. The ground sparkled in places with broken down mica, which is quite beautiful as well! Eventually we realised it was lunchtime, and the kids were feeling tired and hungry, so we turned around and made our way back. Quite a nice walk, and we enjoyed walking through woodland, searching for birds and wildflowers.

We went back to our tent for lunch, and vague plans of checking out the nearby lake system disintegrated, since we were all feeling pretty tired and in need of a rest. Though the kids then spent most of the afternoon at the two nearby playgrounds. I went walking through a patch of bushland behind the caravan park in search of some spider orchids that are meant to be there, but with no luck. I saw one at the reserve that was a few days too far gone so I had hoped to see some better looking specimens. We then walked into town for yet another playground visit. We stopped into the IGA for some salad to go with dinner. The lolly aisle caught the kids interest, it had a section of small 25c things – Richie told them they could spend $2 each, so we spent the next half hour in the lolly aisle, watching the indecision. Lots of little things….or one big thing……🤯 Bonnie settled on two chocolate bars, and Otis an assortment of lollies. We checked out the main street of town,which is nice though has obviously seen better days, with many boarded up shop fronts.

Walking back to our tent, we decided to make use of the well marked sports oval and do some sprint races – something I have never been particularly good at! We learnt that Bonnie and I are about even at the moment. Which means she’ll probably be able to beat me in six months! No surprises there!

We got a fire going, had marshmallows and dinner (after learning early on that marshmallows before bed are a very bad idea!).