2015/10 Australia trip - Badgingarra |
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Wednesday October 14th
We had sunny and cool morning and a nice view out over the valley. In the distance we could see road trains grinding along the Great Northern highway. Our planned destination was Badgingarra, the only place we intended to revisit on this trip. Back in 2006 we had walked in the park for just a couple of hours and seen an amazing variety of flowers. We were two months later this time and hoped for different plants to be flowering
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We had about a three hour drive through Moora to Badgingarra, allowing for flower stops along the way. This was mostly wheat country but the highways were lined with tall gum trees with noisy pink galahs and green parrots and white corellas flitting about. The day had turned showery.
We found a piece of Badgingarra but not the part we’d visited before. There didn’t seem to be any roads in but there was a parking area for visitors to view the flowers. 
Unfortunately the area was well trampled and even worse the garbage had not been collected and the single bin had overflowed and blown everywhere. It was all rather disappointing, but then we had a stroke of luck: a rain storm swept in and we had to run for cover.
We drove further along the road and found the “entrance” to the park, a sand track that led along the boundary fence. This was perfect. The track was loose sand 
but not as bad as it looks in the picture; and not a problem for the Troopie.
We putzed along the track until Sandie would spot a new flower, and we’d get out and find a few more, and then dash back inside as the next squall came lashing in. 
The biggest surprise was that not only were the plants different from 2006, there were dozens that we hadn’t seen at the previous day’s rocks.
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Badgingarra (0.53) |
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There were grass trees, kangaroo paws, great cylindrical banksias, and many peas; we’d be seeing lots of other varieties of these families over the next few weeks. Sandie 
spotted a wreath flower, past its best but still with its flowers intact. Good to see a “wild” one rather than the tame ones in Wubin. Once we knew there were some around we found a half dozen more.
After an hour or two we came out the other side of the park and simply turned around and did it all again. There were a couple of side tracks winding into the park 
but we saw no people or buildings.
We wanted to camp just outside Perth, so we drove down the coast road until we found a rest area near Wilbinga with a track leading off into the bush and possibly down to the beach.
Suddenly Sandie was zigzagging between trees in two-wheel drive in deep sand but didn’t dare stop in case we got stuck. We passed a sign 
advertising a four-wheel drive recovery service! Others must have fared worse.
Finally we found a clearing off the track, dived in and claimed it as our campsite.
It was cool and breezy, but we were sheltered by the bush around us. There were fewer flies but now we had kangaroo ticks too, easy to detect as they are larger than the 
North American wood tick. They were probably harmless as long as we didn’t pull them off and leave the head stuck in our skin.
This was the end of our journey west as we were on the edge of the Indian Ocean; we’d now be starting our loop around the southwest coast. It meant a change to our camping too; so far, although we’d made a couple of donations, we hadn’t actually paid for any of our ten campsites. From now on we’d be mostly in national parks, paying for camping but getting trails and toilets as part of the deal. The downside would be that we’d have to wear clothes all the time, not that we are nudists but it had been nice to wash in the sunshine rather than skulking behind the camper.
With all these changes, this seems to be a good place to end this part of our story. The next part will cover our trip around the southwest corner of Australia.