We had two days exploring and one at camp. On the 19th, we left Toodyay and went down to Midland to send off our parcels and did a driving tour as well. On the 20th, we stayed at camp and walked into Toodyay and caught up with the house items needing attention and today 21st, we went back to Midland and up to Yanchep National Park and another driving tour back to Toodyay.
Midland is a suburb of Perth on the fringe leading into the country areas. Some parts are a little tired and there are a lot of new dwellings but to our horror, the houses are almost gutter to gutter. We can’t understand why anyone would live like this. Homes over here are built on less than 200 sq metres. We thought Kaffia Court was a small block and they fit three houses to that! Just a walk way around the house.
19th – the first part of our drive. – Toodyay – Chittering – Bindoon and back – Lower Chittering – Bullsbrook - Midland
Along part of the drive over to Bindoon, we came across some roadside sculptures. This one is of a grass tree, very simple,but very effective.
This bell was made out of stacked stone and marks the place of “The Lake” School which closed in 1952. This is the best place marker for a school that I have seen.
Here we are mid morning with a large mining truck being transported. This was at Bullsbrook which has a RAAF Base and has signs with notice of the low flying and noisy aircraft. We saw a couple of very low flying jets overhead.
We then headed to do our shopping and then the rest of the tour.
This is the second part of our journey that day. Most of the small villages have a petrol station, general store, possibly a bakery and hotel.
Midland – Mundaring – Mundaring Weir – Lake Leschenaultia – Wooroloo – Bailup - Toodyay
Mundaring Weir – this was built to supply water to Kalgoolie. The pipeline is 560 kms and the dam was completed in 1903. A very ambitious project for it’s time. The project was started in the mid 1890’s when WA had the smallest population of any of the states.
We walked a circuit around the weir. Starting across the weir wall on this bridge, down the steps at the other side and then across a lower bridge.
The lower foot bridge is in the distance. The water was lovely and clear. In the early days the locals would have bets on the day and time that the water would go over the weir. The water doesn’t and won’t go over anymore, as the supply is linked to other water supplies and carefully managed.
This is the story board on how they devised a plan to provide water to the arid east of the state.
Still finding beautiful wild flowers and other things to photograph. This is the water pond downstream from the weir wall. There were sounds of very happy frogs there.
I wasn’t so sure that the chimney stack was true vertical. I would of loved to put a level on it as it seemed to be slightly off or maybe it was a optical illusion.
Lake Leschenaultia –
We came across the sign and did the drive to the lake and what a lovely spot. I am keen to go back there and camp, but it will depend on the arrival of the roof top bag. There are walks including one around the lake. I didn’t take any photos of the actual lake, so I have put in a google image to show you.
This is a google image file -
This is a good image of what it is like.
Our return trip to Toodyay was on another road that we had not used before. Lovely relaxing country drive.
Friday 20th November - Rain – this is our first rainy day since leaving home - just clearing showers, and we used the wipers a couple of times.
We drove down the Toodyay road direct to Midland and then continued our tour from Midland.
Toodyay – Midland – Yanchep – Gingin – Bindoon – Chittering - West Toodyay - Camp
We headed to Yanchep National Park. This style of park is very different to other national parks and looks like it is based on the American style parks which includes a cafe and accommodation and they also advertise a wedding venue. All of the buildings within the park were built around 1930 and they reflect this style. There are also a lot of non indigenous plants like Hibiscus which would never be planted today. Lovely lawns and facilities.
There are some very long walks (like 17 klms) in the park which we didn’t have time for. We did a short walk through the wildflower section and visited the koala habitat.
The kangaroo ears are so different to the east coast kangaroo, they are dove grey with a black band at the bottom. Obviously mother nature designed this for a reason – but what?
Also within the park is a limestone cave called Crystal Cave – we booked a tour which was great as there was only four of us, they have groups of 30 going through. The guide was exceptional and with the small group we got to see additional items. The tour takes about 45 minutes.
The cave was named after the hundreds of “crystals” in the roof, but unfortunately it turned out to be water drop reflections and not stones.
Pond reflection- they have had to put in a artificial pond to preserve the cave humidity as water has stopped running through the cave. The last time natural water entered the cave was in 1993. The reason is that Perth and surrounds are using 60-70% of the underground water supply and this has caused lack of subterranean water in the caves. They also have pieces of glass everywhere and check each day to make sure that there has been no shift in the earth. If there is any movement, the small lengths of glass will crack or break. The reason is because there was a tour on during the last earthquake in 1963. Fortunately no one was injured at that time.
The vista down to the lake – the lake is full of ducks and other water birds, but is low until the next rains.
Gingin – this is a lovely town on Gingin Brook. The town is on the slopes both sides leading to the brook which was fast flowing. The timber walk around the brook was closed – requires replacing, but is described as be sub tropical feel. There were plenty of ferns. There is a replica water wheel turning to represent the mill that was once in the area. The parkland area was beautiful and green and the standard red roses were everywhere. I don’t think we have seen so many roses as we have in the Perth district. We went in to the “Everything” store - it had hardware, drapery, groceries, camping gear, stock feed - basically they had it all – even goat muesli ! Yum Yum.
Glen to the rescue with the Gingin photos – I had a upload error and deleted mine….
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