Tuesday weather was hot and sunny with a clear blue sky.
We packed up from Pumphrey Bridge and continued down the York Williams Road towards Dryandra Woodland.
We took a left turn thinking that it was to the camp ground so became accidental tourists to the Old Mill Site.
We will be in this section of WA until late January.
We are pretty happy to be here with lots of walks, drives and bird watching to keep us occupied.
The woodland is very dry, with shady trees and not much undergrowth. There are still a lot of wildflowers in bloom.
There are quite a few flies, but haven’t really bothered us too much as we have the large screened area within the trailer.
There are great facilities at the camp ground.
The mill dam and on the right in all of the shallows were hundreds and hundreds of fingerlings. The fish within the dam are breeding well.
They have used parts of the old mill for the picnic area. It was interesting to read how this land has not been covered by ice for water for 260 million years and is one of the oldest in the world.
Being a hot day, we decided that we would do the night time walk on offer.
We headed to Congelin Camp Ground and set up. This was a state forest and has a lot of access roads to drive around in.
Great clean level site with shade most of the day. The camp kitchen has a stainless steel bbq plate and two gas burners – all free of charge and clean toilets with paper what more could you ask for :)
On sunset, we returned to the Old Mill Dam Picnic Area and did the 2.7km night walk which is the longer pink loop under the Dryandra village wording on the photo. There is also a Lions Village which was the former timber getters residences. The Lions Club have refurbished the huts and added more and this facility is open to groups to use.
The WA Landcruiser Club also assists in the maintenance of this area. The walk has reflective wren symbols so that you can find your way along the track. We took a GPS with us and there were parts of the track which were not well identified but we managed. I would not do a walk like this without backup. We also took a spare torch.
What did we see? Usually on these walks you don’t see much as it is by accident if you stumble across something. I was hoping to spot a numbat, but discovered the next day that they are day time foragers, so that was wishful thinking. We were on the extended part of the track when we came across a echidna who was pretending that we were not there. He would hide his head and sneak a look and put his head down again, after awhile, he decided that we weren’t going to be a problem and just strolled off.
Better things to do than play peek-a-boo with us.
A small gecko took advantage of our torch for hunting. At first I didn’t realize it was a gecko because of it’s long body and high head shape. A very very cute possum back at the car park strolling around. Obviously not much to be afraid of out here.
It was after 8.10 pm when we returned to camp for showers, cuppa. Very enjoyable walk.
Wednesday 26th November – Warm, Very Cloudy and late shower with thunder in the distance.
Wake up this morning was very early as a large group of wrens moved through the camp ground. We had breakfast and tackled another walk which starts from the camp ground.
Congelin Siding Walk which is 1.6 km return. This line was only in use for about 30 years and used to freight stock and timber. The walk has interpretative signs which point out the various sections of the track still visible.
The little symbols for the track marker are really great, kids would love following these. Last night, we followed Blue Wren symbols. On the Mt Herbert track we followed Camel symbols.
Here is the sign with the remanent of a siding.
Stock yard and loading facilities. I had no idea how they loaded cattle into the stock wagons. They use a walk on wagon chute.
There were a couple of original sleeps left, one thing about rail line tracks, they are nice and level for walking.
In this dry area, the timber is still going well after 90 years. They built a dam to collect water for the steam engines. This dam has a spill way going into it. Before the spill way just down from the bridge, they had built a leaf and branch filtering area to stop the dam from being filled with debris.
After our walk, we then did a 30 klm drive with interpretative signs. We saw a few more new birds along the way and lots of great plants.
Glen noticed that the seed pod designed differed on the same tree with the pattern being 4,5,6 – which is intriguing.
Here is a 5. These flowers and leaves are massive, the bees crawl down and disappear. The tree is a series of long straggly branches arching up and down, not a tree you would want to plant even for these spectacular flowers and leaves.
These gums flowers are yellow, opposed to usual cream flowers that we see on the east coast.
We are not that far from where May Gibbs lived and you can clearly see her inspiration here.
Birds, we saw a Western Rosella, Elegant Parrot.
Not a great shot, but a very timid bird – Elegant Parrot.
Late, this afternoon, we had three Bush Stone Curlews wander near our camp. They are very shy and secretive, so this was unusual. These are the birds with the blood curdling night call that makes your heart beat a little faster…..and…… it’s raining ! The camper trailer actually has rain falling on it, the first since we left in July. Nice gentle rain…. We cooked at Lunch time, so no dodging the rain drops trying to get dinner ready. :)
