Week 26 Dongara Back to Flowers

                            Week 26

                                         Dongara Back to Flowers

Jewel beetle

A new working week and we are in sunshine by the sea, watching sunsets over water. How lucky are we?

Port Denison Sunset

For the past week Brian has watched while his finger swelled so has finally succumbed to nagging and gone to the doctor, who gleefully lanced it, so now it is returning to normal.

Kalbarri catspaws

There are lots of walks here we have been enjoying, plus a golf course reminiscent of Milla Milla- very hilly – but a good course. The greens are sloping and fast and good practice at gentle hits.

Our final day here, the sunny morning skies soon turned to rolling black clouds massing in the sky. We made sure everything was put away to save having wet things to put away on moving day.

Today was a “small world day”. On an impulse we called into the bakery at Dongara, just because it was there. Inside I was greeted. “Hello Gail,” the smiling assistant said. I had to admit defeat. It was Margaret, from the old days of dancing at Owen’s studio at Centenary. She no longer has long hair but her smile is broad and she is enjoying a trip around Australia, but working as she is traveling. She left Cairns in February and has been going the opposite direction to us. Goes to prove you cannot hide anywhere.

Chris and Margaret made a purchase yesterday that was of benefit to us. They have no oven in their van, so drove back to Geraldton and bought an “Esicook”. Margaret had a win as Chris cooked the roast and we had a win because we got to eat it. A job well done Chris! May there be many more cooking experiences for the ‘man of the van’.

Cowslip cluster

So off we drove to Western Flora Caravan Park. It is about 20km north of Eneabba. Merv tells me this is where Helen’s father had a farm.

The first evening we had a walk around the park with the owner Allan who gives an interesting talk about the plants here and then gives a slide show. I have a separate blog this week just on that talk if you are interested.

The following morning we join a tag-a-long tour along some local fire trails and gas pipeline link roads. Everytime we stop there is something new. There is such an abundance of different species within a few feet it is amazing. Again I will try to post a fuller account of this in a separate blog. I am going to be going through photos all week.

tag-along-tour

We did our own tag-a-long next. We drove to Eneabba then on to Three Springs, doing a circuit back to the park. There were lots of Nature reserves on the route we took and again lots of beautiful finds.

Three Springs view

A special one was the Purple enamel orchid which took our breath again, the way it shone in the sunlight. Can’t give you the right name, because it isn’t in any of the books I have to refer to. I found a reference to a pink enamel orchid which flowers in the Wandoo woodland, right where we found this one. Perhaps we are colour challenged? No, here it is - elythranthera brumonis.

purple enamel orchid

The walks around the park here are also worth doing. I decide to spend a quiet day on Saturday, not firing on all cylinders today. Brian is off finding a sandstone waterfall about 5km along the track in the park.

He then went off for a walk with a neighbour who showed him some more orchids, so we had flying ducks, arrowsmiths, leeks and another purple enamel.

Arrowsmith orchid

Brian has since been planning a more active day tomorrow to visit Lesueur National Park. That will be a story for next week.

flying duck orchid

Hope all you dancers out there are going to enjoy your masquerade ball tonight.

sapphire

Cheers from the happy wanderers.

blue tinsel