2015/11 Australia trip - Porongurup |
|||||
Sunday October 25th
We had another wet morning, this time with showers heavy enough for a soaking. Ever optimistic, hoping to get past the storm system, we headed south to the park we’d bypassed on our way from Albany. Porongurup is a relatively small park that protects a range of granite peaks. With the different soil we thought we might see some new plants too.
Luckily we were back to drizzle and brief sunny spells, but everywhere was dripping from the earlier rain. Our first stop was at the trailhead for Castle Rock and the Skywalk, whatever that was. The trail was busy on a Sunday morning, mainly with organized tour groups; teenagers bounding up the mountain.
The trail is about a 5K return and it’s quite steep with lots of rocks to step up; we’d appreciate our trekking poles on the way down. We were
back amongst the karri trees again. This one had been recently felled, leaving this wedge behind; a great souvenir for someone if they could lift it. There were plenty of flowers along the trail, which was good as the views were largely wiped out by the low clouds. All the shrubs and trees were soaking wet. We had glimpses of red-headed parrots, but no pictures.
As we climbed to the top, the rocks became larger until we came to a bus-sized balanced rock. Beyond there was the Skywalk, which turned out to be a 
set of metal handholds and footholds for climbing the summit rocks and getting to the ladder which ended at the actual summit gantry. In the picture the ladder just disappears onto the cloud. This wasn’t Sandie’s idea of fun, but it didn’t look too difficult and I had my best rock-climbing sandals on. By a fluke there was no one else on the climb, good as I needed to concentrate and move slowly.
The top was an anticlimax as the view just disappeared into the clouds. Getting down was trickier than getting up. At the bottom was a young Indian guy with a baby strapped to his chest; he wanted to know how difficult the climb was. Sandie and I tried to explain to him that 
rockclimbing with a baby and wearing flipflops was not a good idea. Luckily, just as he was about to start his climb, his wife, carrying the other twin, caught up with him and last we saw she was giving him hell!
When we got down we drove to the Tree in the Rock picnic area for lunch, where this magpie tried to join the party.
We then drove the Angwin Road looking for wildflowers. The road was good with some brief views of Porongurup’s mountains but it was very 
steep in places, difficult to even walk up.
We finished our day with Devon teas at the Porongurup Café. Close by we spotted this spectacular plant, thinking it was some kind of grevillea that looked like a honeysuckle but, looking more closely now, I see that it actually is a honeysuckle, probably a Californian tourist.
The closest place to camp was where we’d started our day so we drove back to Moingup Springs for the night. We visited the Stirling Ranges road again to see if all those blue orchids had opened, but they were still closed.