Another yellow coastal heath flower species. It’s like a yellow version of the mountain devil, but the leaves are like holly.
All posts by Sandra Graham
Point D’Entrecasteaux – Part 3
This part of the coast is limestone country. Notice the pinnacle-like formations along the cliff. They’re like stalagmites in a cave – except the cave ceiling had long been eroded away.
Point D’Entrecasteaux – Part 2
The coastal heath flowers on the point were incredible. Strangely enough, most of them were a light yellow. Here is a mini bottle brush like specimen.
Point D’Entrecasteaux – Part 1
We head out to the point, where we can see from above the wildness of the coast – miles of sand, heath, scrub and swamp whipped by the winds and tides of the Southern Ocean. No wonder the early explorers didn’t think much of it. What they didn’t know was that there were some wonderful forests only 20km inland.
Windy Harbour – Part 4
Here’s some lovely peas you don’t see on the east coast. Love the colour combination here. It turns out that I tried to grow this one in a pot at home – but it died due to lack of water. One thing the south west does not (usually) lack is rain, due to the cold fronts coming off the Indian Ocean.
Windy Harbour – Part 3
Not a bad place to have a picnic – as long as it isn’t too windy (there’s a reason why the hamlet is called Windy Harbour).
Windy Harbour – Part 2
Some interesting dune flowers we found near the cottages. The white daisies we commonly see on the east coast, but this was the first time I’d seen a weeping flower.
Truffles – Part 2
In my enthusiasm to post about the sea, I almost forgot to post about the truffle dogs I saw. They’re the ‘heroes’ of the truffle farm, as it is they who find the truffles in the massive groves. There were several dogs out on the yard, and they were very alert!
Apparently there was a young beagle about too, but we didn’t see him.
Windy Harbour – Part 1
After quite a few posts inland, we’re heading to the sea again. I’ll concentrate on our visit to D’Entrecasteaux National Park, which is located on the coast south of Pemberton.
D’Entrecasteaux’s name pops up a few times along Australian shores because he was one of the first explorers to chart our shores. The reason he was out here at all was to search for La Perouse who disappeared off the east coast some 3 years before (there is a suburb in Sydney named after him). D’entrecasteaux’s mark is all over Tasmania (Bruny Island is named after him), but I knew less about his Western Australian place names.
We visited Point D’Entrecasteaux, half way along the national park coast. The only settlement is the fishing hamlet of Windy Harbour, consisting of a row of fibro fishing cottages, a boat ramp, and stretches of beach between boulders. On the horizon is the uninhabited Sandy Island.
Truffles – Part 1
As I mentioned before, Manjimup is famous not only for its trees, but its truffles. It is the largest, and most successful, growing area in the Southern Hemisphere. Truffles are rather heady subterranean fungi that chefs love. They grow best near the roots of hazelnut trees.
So what does a truffle growing area look like? Hazelnut groves as far as the eye can see.
Static and Silence 