Tag: Western Australia
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BRAVING THE WEATHER FOR THE PINNACLES
Anyone looking at today’s weather forecast for Western Australia would have thought the sensible thing to do would be to rug up and stay home. My weather app screamed of severe weather alerts … heavy winds and lots of rain. But Annie, our friend from our time in Cali, Colombia, came all the way from North Carolina to visit, and Padma and I wanted to show her around our State. We took our chances and pointed the car to the north for a day trip. The rain stopped just as we…
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TWO DAYS IN MARGARET RIVER
Padma and I are hoping that many of our friends and family will visit us in our new home in Western Australia. We’re still discovering the State and trying to figure out where to take our guests. Our friend, Annie Tomalin, is helping us get some practice as tour guides. Annie and Padma were colleagues at the Colegio Colombo Britanico in Cali, Colombia a few decades ago … so we’ve also had a chance to catch up and reminisce about living in Colombia during a tumultuous era. Margaret River is a…
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IT’S FLOWER TIME
When Padma and I planned our two-month Northern Hemisphere Friends and Family tour, I made sure we’d be back in time for the Western Australia wildflower show. As I discovered last season, Western Australia is a biodiversity hotspot for its flora. The first wildflowers start blooming in July and reach a climax in September … but in a state the size of Western Europe the flowering dates vary greatly. Regrettably, I’ve been chained to my desk since we returned four weeks ago and I just haven’t been able to get out…
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FITZGERALD RIVER NATIONAL PARK
Fitzgerald River National Park is one of Western Australia’s largest parks but only comprises 0.13% of the State’s total area. Yet 20% of the State’s flora can be found in the park. It’s a ridiculously diverse region of the State where you can find 1800 species of flowering plants. About 60 of those species are found nowhere else in the world. I’m still trying to learn why Western Australia has so much biodiversity but I think I understand the basic formula. You’ve got an ancient land which has been isolated for…
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OUR YEAR IN PERTH
One year ago today, right about this time in the evening, Padma, Joseph and I arrived in Perth and joined a police-escorted convoy to our Hotel Quarantine. One year ago tonight. So much has happened since then … but why repeat it in yet another of my long-winded stories … it’s all here on my Facebook posts. Just scroll down my timeline … Instead I wanted to share a photo I haven’t shared with anyone before. Here’s a twilight photo of our adopted city which I shot a few months ago…
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A JOURNEY TO THE SOUTHWEST
DAYS 1-3: SOUTHERN FORESTS AND VALLEYS Padma and I started getting itchy feet again and wanted to get some camping in before the heat and bugs of summer made it less fun. We plotted an itinerary to the Great Southern Region of Western Australia but soon discovered many of the national park campgrounds do not allow campfires. Padma and I just couldn’t see the point of camping if we didn’t have the ‘Bush Telly’ to watch at night and keep us warm. So we re-routed via the Southern Forests and Valleys…
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ELLIS BROOK VALLEY RESERVE
Our local motoring club posted an blog entitled ‘10 of Perth’s most vibrant wildflower hotspots’. The first hotspot on the list was 40 minutes from home. Padma and I were keen to enjoy the Spring weather so we took an afternoon jaunt to Ellis Brook Valley Reserve. The blog post said the Reserve was one of ‘Perth’s most plentiful locations for wildflower’ and was packed with 500 species of wildflowers. The blog was pretty much spot on. It was indeed an impressive reserve. It was a Monday afternoon and very quiet…
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BRAIN FOG
Photo: Drosera porrecta. A species of sundew without a common name. Endemic to Western Australia. Carnivorous. Has traps consisting of sticky-glandular, flypaper-like leaves. Hard to find. Will have a white flower later in the year. Once upon a time I was a naturalist in the state and national parks of the United States. I would spend my summers taking park visitors on guided walks and help them appreciate the joys of nature. If a visitor would ask me about a plant – any plant – I’d rattle off the common name,…
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THE LARGEST TEMPERATE FOREST ON EARTH
On the last hour of the last day of our double crossing of the Nullarbor Plain, Padma and I drove real slowly. We had no hurry to reach the dumpy motel room in Norseman that awaited us. The sun was getting low in the sky when we encountered a significant change in landscape. The scrubby, treeless Nullarbor Plain was transitioning into the Great Western Woodlands. In a country of superlatives, the Great Western Woodlands stands out as it is the largest intact temperate (that is, Mediterranean climate) woodland remaining on Earth.…
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