2015/10 Australia trip - Wubin Rocks |
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We drove on to nearby Beringbooding Rock. This is a rock that’s been completely tamed. There’s a wall around the entire rock and an aqueduct carrying water into a giant 
covered tank. Up on the rock itself are smaller walls that look like they are protecting the plant life but I suspect they are there to stop the topsoil being washed down into the tank.
The route looked rugged enough for me to wear hiking boots. I’d brought along my old boots, left behind in 2010, only to find now that they’d dried out and the glue had let go. My left sole was flapping for the rest of the walk.
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Beringbooding Rock (2.19) |
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We found some strangely eroded granite boulders. For some reason
they rot from the bottom up and get progressively more ragged underneath while the tops remain smooth and egg-like. On the far side of the rock was a pool at the foot of a cliff; it would have made an idyllic rest stop if we hadn’t been sharing it with a recently dead kangaroo.
We were moving on to the west, aiming for Dalwallinu, as the Merredin people had said that was the place to find out about the flowering further north. We saw a signpost for Bonnie Rock, but it turned out to be a ghost town, started in the 1930s and abandoned by 1940s; only the old town hall remains. Leaving there we saw our 
first termite mound of the trip; there are termites everywhere in Australia but I’d thought the big mounds were only in the north, wrong again.
We stopped for lunch at Dajoin Rocks, missing the main entrance to the reserve but bouncing in instead on a track that wound its way between trees and boulders.
There may be a big rock there but we didn’t find it; Sandie was feeling the heat and not keen on a long hike. We ate surrounded by boulders and parked amongst a carpet of yellow flowers. These spiders had enormous webs but weren’t having much impact on the flies.
Our route took us past salt lakes and gypsum mines to the little town of Dalwallinu. The lady at the visitor centre told us we were too late for the carpets of everlastings. “They don’t last?” I asked, but got no reaction. She said that the wreath flowers were probably finished too, but thought there might still be 
some in a park in Wubin, just north of town. Wreath flowers grow in a circle flat on the ground, with the greenery in the centre and the red flowers on the outside, hence the name.
She recommended that we head south for the best flower shows. She gave us more maps and brochures for the surrounding flower areas. They can be hard to read though. What has happened to Strine (the Australian language)? What used to be beaut, bonzer, or spiffy is now stunning, vibrant, or pristine.
We drove to Wubin and found that the wreath flowers in the town park had finished but at least we have a picture, albeit posthumous. 
Wubin has its own rock pile outside town, part flowering shrubs, part camping spot, and part party place. We had the place to ourselves on a very windy evening with the temperature dropping fast. We had a great view from our rock but we’d have to remember which way to walk after dark.