Wildflower drifts and burrowing bees

We reached Exmouth just in time for the Census, with someone delivering a form to us in the caravan park. We decided to fill it in and post it, rather than do it online, which was lucky, considering what happened to the website.

Anyway, we enjoyed our time there, spending the best part of a day exploring the western side of the cape, which is Ningaloo World Heritage area. The sea was the most glorious turquoise, the sand was white . . . but a screamingly cold southerly was blowing so we didn’t venture into the water.

When we drove south to Carnarvon, we found that some of the tentative bursts of wildflower colour we’d been seeing for weeks had intensified into drifts of white, yellow, mauve, acid pink and even deep purple under the shrubby bush growth. These were tiny individual plants and looked like groundcovers, and there are also larger bushes laden with pink or purple blooms, blue or yellow as well.

But the real surprise on coming close to Carnarvon was the sight of plantations of bananas, mangoes, tomatoes and zucchini. It was such a joy to see green growing plants after weeks of pretty arid countryside, even though the recent rains have brought on short grass and the wildflowers.

We had just one night in town, then headed east to Mt Augustus, a monolith or inselberg (island mountain) that rears out of a fairly arid plain around 400km north-east of Carnarvon. The first 180km were on bitumen, to the tiny town of Gascoyne Junction, then we just went about 60km on a dirt road to spend a night at Kennedy Range National Park.

It was absolutely glorious! The little campground nestles in under part of a wonderful rocky range that is 75km long and 25km deep in places, full of great walks in the gorges. We did one the afternoon we arrived, then awoke at the crack of dawn, packed up and drove a short distance away

Heading up Temple Gorge, so-called

because of the large rock slightly

like a Mayan temple.

to another part of the park where we did a short walk to what is called Honeycomb Gorge, so called because a natural waterfall and general weathering has created a honeycombed effect on the cliff face.

Then we drove for 260km on relatively decent dirt roads to reach Mt Augustus National Park and a pretty little campground, where caravans, campervans, camper trailers and motorhomes ring a sort of village green (“No wheels on the grass!”, said the woman in the office). Great flocks of corellas and galahs made a soaring, raucous farewell to the day, then settled in trees well away, thank goodness. On our way there, driving through endless arid vistas, John remarked, “We’re in a great heap of nothingness, in the middle of bugger all”. That said it all.

Bright and early the next morning we set off to drive around the great rock that is Mt Augustus, stopping every so often to do short walks into gorges, climbing a little way to the top. We didn’t do the 8-9 hour walks which would have taken us to the summit . . . too much respect for our ageing knees. But we thoroughly enjoyed what we did, which often were not so much walks as

Mt Augustus

scrambles along rocky gullies, so our hiking sticks were well used. These walks brought us close to the extraordinary variety of flowering bushes that are starting to come to life on the rocky mountainside.

A highlight of the morning was finding a whole group of burrowing bees on the road. They had been noticed by the National Parks volunteers in the camp the day before and they’d marked the spot with witches’ hats and rope so vehicles would not drive over the bees as they burrowed deep into the clay, making little chambers where they placed pollen and nectar, laying one egg in each. When these

The extraordinary 'burrows' of the bees.

The stingless native burrowing

bees are among the largest in

Australia.

females have completed their task, and had several eggs safely tucked away, they come to the surface, filling in behind them, and usually then drop dead of exhaustion. The eggs hatch into pupae, which consume the nectar and pollen, then nod off for about a year, during which they transform into the next generation of bees which come to the surface, are fertilised by the waiting males . . . and on the story goes. These are some of the biggest native bees in Australia, only found on the northern plains of WA.

One of the 'easy' walks at Mt Augustus.

By midday, when it was almost too hot to do any more walks, we went to the last spot on our map, a large permanent waterhole on the Lyons River, which runs behind the campground. There we had lunch, contemplated a swim, but ended coming back to camp, adding our sweaty walking clothes to a pile of washing, which then dried in the afternoon sun.

On our way back to Carnarvon we stayed at Gascoyne Junction, a tiny town almost wiped out by the flooded Gascoyne River in 2010. Since then the local council had obtained a Royalties for Regions grant (one of the best things the WA Govt has ever done, in that we’ve seen so many great projects funded by those mining royalties).

The 100-year-old pub close to the river was destroyed in the flood, so for the past two years there has been what is called a ‘tourist precinct’ . . . a brand new service station/café/bar/restaurant with a caravan park attached featuring cabins, a pool, and a flock of backpackers, including a French chef, who staff the roadhouse. Naturally, we ate at the restaurant that night, had a great time with a couple travelling from Bundaberg, and then set off the next morning to return to Carnarvon for a few days.

Next post: Carnarvon, then Shark Bay.