No rain! - on our last day in Perth

30th July 2014

No rain all day but grey and overcast.  Last night was exceptionally warm for this time of year, it didn't drop below 15 degrees all night.  The daytime high was probably only about 20 though.

Today we spent time preparing the car and van for dropping off tomorrow but found time to enjoy two walks in the Perth Hills.

Lesmurdie Falls

Firstly we went to Lesmurdie Falls walking upstream to the falls then up to the top of the scarp then up higher where there were spectacular views across to the city.  We then looped around a less well trodden route back and here we found lots of different wildflowers including the first orchid I have seen on this trip. Very exciting!

Donkey Orchid

Later we walked along the Mason and Bird Heritage trail.  These gentleman logged Jarrah from the Perth Hills to ship to India to be used as railway sleepers.  In 1872 they completed construction of a horse drawn tramway from Carmel to the Canning River from where the milled logs were shipped to Fremantle and then to India.  

Munday Brook bridge 1872

The original tramway included 3 Jarrah trestle bridges, only one is left now but is thought to be the oldest all timber bridge in Australia. The tramway was converted to a road by the end of the 19th century and was still in use as a public road until 1975.  

We are flying to Sydney tomorrow for 4 weeks so the blog will be continued in late August.  Looking forward to seeing all the family.

Revisit John Forrest NP

29th July 2014

Today we moved the van from Caversham to Forrestfield in preparation for taking it to the nearby caravan service centre on Thursday prior to flying to Sydney.

We are having the van raised by 100mm so it has better clearance over low obstacles like speed bumps and high kerbs.  There are also a couple of warranty issues to be fixed. The service people have kindly agreed to deliver the car and the van to a storage facility opposite their premises and have it back ready for us when we return on 29th August. We have also arranged with the caravan park a return to the same drive through site we are on tonight as it will be after dark when our flight arrives back.  The park has great facilities but is the most expensive we have been to so I'm glad we're only here for 3 nights in total.

John Forrest NP

We spent the afternoon in Bunnings followed by John Forrest NP again where we walked another section of the old rail route.  Bunnings was necessary as yesterday we purchased a mobile 80w solar panel which can be used to top up the car or the caravan battery; we needed a long chain and padlocks to ensure it does not get stolen. Although the 80w solar panel on the roof of the caravan works well, we are concerned that when camping in the southern forests it may be impossible to get enough sun on it.  Now we have solved that problem and can also use the panel if we remote camp in a tent to charge the inverter, fridge, lights and so on.

Park resident who wanted to share lunch!

In the NP there is a big flock of noisy red tailed black cockatoos which live in a particular area; they were in the same place when we walked there last week.  The creek seemed higher today with lots of small rivulets running into it.

Plenty of water at Hovea Falls

A mostly sunny day in Perth

28th July 2014

The car was booked in for a service in the city this morning so we were in the city centre by 7:45am.  A few showers up until midday and then absolutely beautiful sunshine for the rest of the day.

The old Swan Brewery now converted to apartments

After meeting with some friends [great to catch up with Sandra and Adriaan plus their children] in a cafe in Kings Park we went for a long walk around the park and climbed the DNA tower for a view in all directions.

DNA tower, Kings Park

We then walked along the Swan riverfront and visited several of the beautiful parks that grace the city before catching a bus back to the car dealer.  There are a number of city bus routes that are free so we have taken full advantage.

The swan family safely relocated

Along the river we spotted a black swan crossing a 4 lane highway with six little cygnets following behind.  Fortunately the cars all stopped and the family safely arrived for a reunion with the other parent at a pond over the road.

Rain in the Perth Hills

27th July 2014

More torrential rain this morning so we started off driving to Kalamunda, a small town in the Perth Hills which is surrounded by forests. Unfortunately all the tracks were very wet so we decided to have a cup of coffee instead and visit the farmers market that is held there every weekend.  The local farmers bring in their produce which is really fresh.  We couldn't buy much though as we are leaving for Sydney on Thursday.

Mundaring Weir [not letting the rain spoil the visit]

From here we drove to Mundaring Weir, which is really a dam.  This is the bold project completed in 1903 to deliver water to the goldfields in the east of the state.  The water travels 557 kms inland via steel pipes and rises 390 metres on the way.  As there is no reliable water source in the desert areas this was instrumental in allowing the goldfields to flourish and also provide irrigation to areas on the way for crop production.  The red desert soil is quite fertile when water is applied.

The dam was originally a weir but the reservoir capacity was increased in 1950 by building a second wall 10 metres higher in front of the first one.  Now it would be an unusual circumstance for the reservoir to be so high that it flowed over the wall, in fact despite all the rain we have seen the water level was quite low.  Suprisingly, the Mundaring Weir is not the water source for Perth, all the water is pumped East.

No 1 Pump Station constructed 1902

The original pumping station, now long since superseded, was steam operated, wood burning and known as No 1 Pump Station.  The National  Trust administer the building but unfortunately it was not open today so we didn't get a chance to look at the machinery.

More views of Perth in the rain

26th July 2014

The rain this morning was torrential between about 10:00am and 2:00pm.  John was keen to visit the Aviation Heritage Museum and we decided to get there by car instead of taking the train.  Good decision because we would have got soaked.

PBY-5A Catalina flying boat

The museum is on RAAF grounds and has mostly military aircraft and memorabilia on display.  John was very interested in the machinery and I enjoyed the history of the WAAAF [formed during WWII and standing for Womens Auxillary Australian Air Force], later WAAF when women were accepted into the air force in peacetime.  Now of course everyone comes under the RAAF.

I also found a display of some old Ansett 'hosties' uniforms.  The one from the 1970's, in shades of lilac, was particularly hideous and known among the girls who wore it as the violet crumble outfit!

Perth city skyline from Kings Park

We decided to drive into Kings Park in the city in the afternoon, the rain stopped on cue so we walked in the botanic garden.  The park is the largest park in a capital city in the world [so bigger than Central Park in NY] and is elevated so there are wonderful views over the city and out to sea.  When European settlers arrived it was thickly wooded with Jarrah, Marri and Tuart trees.  Most of the the jarrah in particular was removed to build the new colony as it's an extremely hard wood and termite resistant.  Some replanting has taken place to return sections of the park to it's natural state.

Kings Park

Fremantle Goal and the Shipwreck Galleries

25th July 2014

Another day in Fremantle visiting the old goal and the shipwreck museum.  Then stayed on into the evening and had dinner on the street known as the cappuccino strip.

Fremantle Prison

We did an excellent tour of the prison, which was still in use as a high security prison until 1991.  The goal was built in the 1850's by some of the first convicts sent to WA from England.  These convicts were sent at the request of the Swan River settlement as they wanted labour for building the colony.

Prison interior, 4 storeys of cells

The prison is very well presented as some parts have been restored to the 1850's era whereas other areas have been left just as they were when vacated in 1991. We were suprised how basic the prison conditions were in the recent past.
The tour was very entertaining and included tales from the old times, but also more recent events including a tour of the execution chamber where over 40 hangings took place.  That was macabre.

Prison cell as left in 1991

The shipwreck Gallery is really good.  On display are artifacts from a number of 17th century Dutch ships wrecked in WA waters, including the Batavia.  A large part of the rear hull of the Batavia, wrecked in 1629, was still intact when found in several metres of water.  Many years were spent preserving and drying the timbers and now they are on display in the museum along with many other artifacts including a lot of silver coinage, bricks [used for ballast]  pottery and metal items and even some fragments of lace.

Replica of the 1606 Duyfken which charted the north Australian coast

John Forrest National Park

24th July 2014

John Forrest NP is situated on the Darling Scarp, a fault line which runs north south through WA on the edge of the coastal plain.  Known as the Perth Hills, the scarp rises steeply and there are great views to the west over the city.

Huge granite boulders are dotted all over the slopes.

John Forrest NP

The forest is largely jarrah and marri and at this time of the year there is plenty of water so the understorey is verdant.  Jane Brook runs through the park and is a tributary to the Swan River.

Jane Brook which flows into the Swan River

Engineers late in the 19th century were looking for a route to take a steam railway over the scarp to the inland areas beyond and this is one of the places that was achieved. Better routes were found in the mid 20th century but the railway continued to run until 1966.  I think this was mainly as a tourist attraction to bring people into the park.

1895 railway tunnel

We did an 11 km return walk along part of this old railway track, which is also excellent for bikes.  The sun shone brilliantly until about 1pm and it got quite warm, definitely the driest day so far in Perth!

Whiteman Park

23rd July 2014

Plenty of rain again today so we decided to go somewhere with indoor as well as outdoor attractions.

Stand of paperbarks

Whiteman Park is a great facility and at it's centre is a 'village' containing three transport museums, a tramway and a railway all of which contain working vehicles. There is also a water park, children's playgrounds, craft shops and a cafe set among picnic tables and lawns.  Around this is more natural bush with walks.

The rain held off long enough to go on one of these walks amongst the jarrah, banksia and paperbark trees.

An early bicycle with timber tyres

We visited both the transport museum and the motor museum.  All the restorations and the operation of the trams and trains is done by enthusiastic volunteers and hobbyists.

Ring necked parrot

A cheeky ring neck parrot was determined to share our lunch and when he didn't get any took to stripping timber off the picnic table!

Maritime Museum Fremantle

22nd July 2014

Further deluges of rain all night and most of the day so we went by train to the Maritime Museum in Fremantle.  The train system is great, only a 5 minute wait in both directions for the connecting train in Perth central.

HMAS Ovens

We ended up spending most of the day in the museum as there is a lot to see.  This included a tour of HMAS Ovens, a submarine in use from the late 1960's until the mid 1990's.  The conditions inside were so cramped and would have been very stuffy as the submariners only got a shower once a week and could smoke in any part of the vessel!

Cramped sleeping quarters

The museum has a number of interesting boats on display including the Australia II which won the Americas cup in 1983.

Australia II yacht

We had a quick visit to the Roundhouse goal before it closed for the day.  This was the first permanent building in the Swan River settlement being built in 1831; made from the local limestone and actually a 12 sided building.  The goal was never intended for serious criminals as all emigrants were free settlers at that time; it was used for short detentions for minor infringements mostly by visiting sailors.

Back to the big smoke - Yanchep to Perth

21st July 2014

Driving in suburban traffic seemed very odd today!  We have decided to stay Caversham, an outer suburb of Perth in the Swan valley.  There are vineyards all around.  Caversham is handy to Guildford railway station for a 30 minute trip into Perth city, but also handy to a large range of national parks to the east which we plan to visit if and when the rain stops.

Set up for the next week or so

Rain showers on and off all day today so we just made a quick visit to Guildford which was originally a town in it's own right but has since become a suburb of Perth.  Guildford was established on the navigable Swan river in 1829.

2 room cottage in Guildford in which a family of 13 children was raised!

The land was fertile so it soon became an important hub for agriculture and industry. Later in the century the Midland railway was installed running right through the centre of town, bisecting it. I don't know why this happened rather than routing the railway a bit further south.

Yanchep NP

20th July 2014

Cold and a bit drizzly this morning but we had a great day enjoying Yanchep NP.  This park is close to Perth so is popular and not as 'natural' as other parks we have been in. However we enjoyed some walks among the tuart trees and in the limestone caves.

Tuart trees in collapsed cave

Crystal Cave

The limestone here is unusual as it is not formed by coral reefs but made from calcified sands.  The sands were ground coral and sea shells which formed into dunes about 500,000 years ago. Rainwater percolating through the dunes dissolved the calcium carbonate cementing the grains together into rock.

The caves have formed through the action of water and stalactities and stalagmites have formed within them.  The caves used to have water running through until about 20 years ago.  Unfortunately the water table in the Perth area has dropped and they are now dry.  The drop is partly due to the demand for water as the city grows and also a large part of the ground water is taken up by pine plantations to the east of the city.

The park has a small koala enclosure in which slumbered about half a dozen animals.

Koala in Yanchep NP

After this we went to the beach in Yanchep where the stormy weather created interesting effects on the headland and the water.

Yanchep beach

Gingin Gravity Discovery Centre - Jurien Bay to Yanchep

19th July 2014

Tonight we are 60kms north of Perth, so there is a lot more going on along our route.  We visited the Gravity Discovery Centre during our drive south today, which was very interesting.

Gravity bending light simulation

The facility is a research station for detecting gravity waves, one of 6 in the world.  An education facility has been opened next to this with some very interesting experiments to do. One of these is a 'leaning tower' which approximates the leaning tower of Pisa from which Galileo conducted gravity experiments. From the modern one the experiment is to drop water filled balloons of different weights to see they drop in a straight line and hit the ground at the same time.

Long way down to the sandpit from the top of the gravity tower.

There is also a cosmos observatory but tonight would not have been good for stargazing as it has been a bit stormy.

Beautiful flower in the nearby bush

Desert column enigma - Nambung NP

18th July 2014

Nambung NP covers a coastal strip which includes several interesting places.  The coast is beautiful, there are saline lakes and a few kms inland, a desert area with strange limestone pinnacles surrounded by kwongan heath.

Pinnacles at Nambung NP

There are many theories about how the pinnacles formed; some scientists believe they are fossilised tree trunks, others say they are a dense mat of fossilised plants which held the dunes together. No one really knows.  What is clear from looking at some of them is networks of fossilised roots and stems.  After the plant matter became fossilised, sand was blown east from the coast and covered them completely.  At various times in the last 500,000 years the columns have been exposed then covered over again.  There are many more below the current ground surface.

The contrast between the yellow sand around the pinnacles and the fine white sand of the coastal dunes is stunning.

Pinnacles amongst the heath and coastal dunes

The sand on the coast is so white it looks like snow.  It is also extremely fine unlike the coarser coral sands further north and we had a great walk along the beach at Hangover Bay.  We can only speculate how the bay got it's name but it should be renamed Eden Bay.

Snow white sand and turquoise water at Hangover Bay

Lake Thetis is one of a string of lakes behind the coastal dunes running down this coast.
 

Stromatolite at Lake Thetis

About 4,000 years ago the connection to the sea was blocked by sand and as the water evaporated it became very saline, a condition in which most life cannot survive.  However, stromatolites which we have already encounterd in Shark Bay thrive in these conditions and the lake is full of them.

Lake Thetis

Lesueur and Stockyard Gully National Parks

17th July 2014

We visited 2 fantastic national parks today.  Lesueur NP is a bio-diversity hotspot with many species of plants growing within the 27,000 hectares known nowhere else on earth. Some like the one pictured only grow within a tiny area of the park where the soil and micro-climate are just right.

Djanda flowers in Lesueur NP

We were fortunate as the wildflower season is just starting and there were many drifts of different colour blooms.  I have been photo cataloging all the flowers we come across during our travels and in a 2 hour walk today I photographed at least 30 different plants.

Kwongan heath, Lesueur NP

The park is a kwongan heath community. Kwongan is an indigenous word describing the diverse range of flora and fauna in the area. Within the park are several mesas, which are flat top mountains that have resisted the erosion of the surrounding areas.  We climbed to the top of Mt Lesueur which was cold and windy but had wonderful views.  From here we saw wedge tail eagles soaring on the thermals.

Mt Michaud from Mt Lesueur

After this we ventured on a 4WD sand track to Stockyard Gully NP which is a series of limestone caves.  In between the caves are steeply sided gullies, which are collapsed caves.  These gullies were used by stockmen as a natural stock yard to contain the cattle and sheep they were droving down to the coast.  The cave we walked through was about 300 metres long and pitch black in the centre.  No water at present but it can flood after rain.  The trees around the gullies were filled with hundreds of screeching Carnaby's Black Cockatoos.

Entering Stockyard Gully cave

Whilst in the area we came across some guys also exploring the caves.  Turns out one of them is a sky diver from Jurien Bay who knows my sister Jane [and her husband Del] who lives in England! Small world indeed.

Bay at Green Head

We finished off the day driving to the coast at Green Head and climbing up a coastal lookout.  There are a series of very pretty bays around the headland with unusual wave patterns due to the underlying rocks.  The bays are formed by eroded limestone ridges.

Coastal walk in Jurien Bay

16th July 2014

Warmer and less windy today with just a couple of showers in the early morning.

Jurien Bay

Jurien Bay

We walked south along a foreshore trail and enjoyed some of the coastal dune wildflowers which are starting to blossom.  Other than that, nothing much.

Unfortunately we have been staying too long in the last few places but had booked ahead because we were concerned camps might be booked out due to the school holidays which end on Friday in WA. This was certainly true of Kalbarri but everywhere since then we should have decided after arriving as we usually do.

Into the rain - Dongarra to Jurien Bay

15th July 2014

This morning we were able to pack up before the rain set in, and to set up at our destination in the dry too. There have been squally showers since arriving, which is apparently quite usual for this part of the coast in the winter.  Unfortunately the caravan park does not have really good sites so there are quite a few puddles around.

Jurien Bay harbour

There is a good foreshore walk in Jurien Bay so we managed to walk the northern part as far as the harbour in between showers.  The coastline all along here has a fringing reef dotted with many islands.  This is the remains of a limestone ridge which has flooded when the sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age.  The reef and islands protect the shore from the pounding seas and the islands, being feral free are also the last refuge of some endangered species.  One of these is the delightfully named dibbler, which is a rat sized marsupial.