29th April 2019 - Dryandra to somehwere near Dwellingup on "The Track"

 198KM 

We made our first stop the arboretum, which was back towards the Dryandra village.  This was last worked on in the 1970s and it was a bit hard to make out what we were supposed to find..













Occasionally we located a wooden post with a species name on it ,but it was still unclear which of the trees nearby might be the ones named…

The plus was that we got to see lots of lovely trees and some blossom







and also the birds were enjoying the area,

which meant that Ross had a lovely time identifying what was around.

We also discovered that there was a fm radio tour which covers some of the area, which we had not read about on any of the other signboards of the printed info for the area. Next time it would be great to try this. 

We also discovered another camp site (Gnaarla Mia) which is a large new campsite near the one we stayed in, at 8.30am there was no evidence that anyone had stayed in the 25 or so lovely flat sites or used the 2 amazingly large camp kitchen shelters with bbqs.  Next time we come through here we should stay here - lots of flat sites with a good amount of room between them.

We drove up the highway towards the track and started in on it at mid morning (Jarrahdale road MC9). 

Light rain was falling and we wondered what the day would be like – and the area was amazingly green compared to the dryandra area.

These scores on the trees were the early navigation system in the area. Some of them were used for the indicators on the track we were following. (turn right at the BV 69 1)

It wasn’t long before we arrived at the old POW camp – this was really an internment camp for Italians during the 2^nd world war (who were worked like crazy milling timber and then send back to Italy after the war finished).  It sounded like cheap labour to us.

very little remains of the camp.

The track took us through Jarrahdale’s orchards and on to the Serpentine Dam, where there are hundreds of car parks near the café (not counting the overflow parking of another hundred or so) . We had lunch at the lower picnic area, where we took a photo of Bridget’s trophy looking down over the autumn leaves. (since we are bringing it home for her it is making a tour on the way).

slightly later on the dam wall lookout of a dam further down.

We did encounter some wash-away sections on the track which actually gave us some thinking about how to pick the correct line , and did a short stretch of bitumen and then back on to dirt before coming to the parking for the Marrinup falls. We took the track down to see the falls, but found a dry river bed instead – with pretty rocks and a little pool. (1.5km)

from the distance this looked like a cemetery.  Then we realised people had been placing piles of rocks. 

Soon after this we came to the old Marrinup townsite which is now a campsite, and we drove around until we found two fairly flat sites side by side and isolated from the rest of the campers.  Ideal.  So we set up.  We actually put up the foxwing awning and the 2 sides – giving lots of shelter in case of possible rain. 

just down the track from our camp 

first time up with sides on

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It is a very crispy night with bright stars (maybe there will be no rain) so we all gathered under the canvas shelter and enjoyed some great conversation until late (8.20pm)  when we all agreed it was time for bed after our long, hard day. 

We are just north of Dwellingup and can hear a sound something like the sound of the grand prix in Adelaide – a constant high buzzing, like the sound of the cars whizzing around the track.  We assume that this is some mining equipment and will probably be an annoying company for the entire night.  We are sure that it will be just a buzz in the background after a while.  

Please note:  days later we realised that the sound was frogs!!

Sunday 28th April - Narrogin to Dryandra

55km

We had bacon and eggs at the motel before heading off to fill up with fuel in Narrogin.

We quickly found the micro cache in the pioneer park before joining Ross and Jan on the corner and heading for Dryandra.

We hadn’t done the event here mid-week, but kept on hearing about how beautiful the area was – and we were not disappointed.

We arrived at the Old Mill Dam and had a lovely time reading about the area and the various animals which live in this little microsystem. It is unique and home to a number of very endangered species – including one of our favourites – the Numbat.

We went off for a 6km walk to see if we could see a numbat, while Ross and Jan checked out the local wildlife and put the washing out to dry that they had washed at the motel the night before. 

The walk (Woylie Walk) was lovely – with many changes of vegetation. We wandered through lots of vegetation that we don’t remember ever seeing before. Apparently there were Powder Wandoo bark (which left a pale pink residue on your hands if you rubbed it) , kwongan heathlands, jarrah and sheoak. Sometimes the vegetation looked soft, but when you touched it it was hard.

We did the pink walk. 

The signs for the walk - follow the woylie.  If you can find the first sign you are fine from there.  It took us a while to do that.

We called these triffid trees. 

changing natives

 

strange spiky leaves

pea gravel at the base of a tree. Walking on pea gravel is interesting .  

hidden camera (maybe it sees numbats)

I could have taken photos of bark all day.So beautiful

We hoped to find numbats as it was the middle of the day (their favourite time )- but we were out of luck. No numbats for us today.

We had lunch by the dam 

  

information about an amazing teacher who saved this area from mining and taught Australia about conservation and the joy of discovering nature.

Look up or you might miss something...

  

before driving on (via the Darwinia Drive) , but we added in some detours- taking in a vague track , not used much recently, which seemed to follow along the old telegraph line from many years ago. (still some posts and insulators in place).

At times the track here was quite overgrown down the centre and at the sides with quite scratchy vegetation.

powder form the powder gum 

  

We added on a bit of track to take us to the Congelin campsite, where we decided to stay the night.  The charge to do this is $11 per adult (send it in to the local office in the envelope supplied).

They have camp kitchens with bbqs and fire pits, tables and benches and an old tank stand from when the train used to go through here from Pinjarra to Narrogin. 

A lovely quiet bush setting, but it will take us a very long time to make it back home if we keep on travelling at this pace!! The old stockyards were huge and the Toyota landcruiser club have built a replica one too, (still the old fashioned way) just a little further up the track, so that you can see what they were like better.  Very solid.  The animals were loaded on to the train here. 

our first camp together. Jan and Ross were parked to the left of the photo. 

We took a nice quiet night walk to the nearby dam (1.6km return) hoping that we might see some nocturnal animals, but no luck.  We scared some ducks at the dam (but didn’t see them), saw one kangaroo on the way there, and picked out some spiders as their eyes reflected in the torch light. The pick of the night was a tawny frogmouth which flew in quietly when we were nearly back to camp.