I had a walk planned for Sunday not far from Perth city, and I wanted to make the most of my unplanned weekend on the area, so I decided to head south on the car to see what I could find.
Highway 2 is the main road that heads south, I decided to head out on that road, as far as Bunbury then take my time on the way back. I stopped for petrol and a coffee about 30 minutes out, it is surprising how quickly it becomes rural, some of the roads leading off the dual carriageway were just dirt tracks. I took a detour about an hour out near a lake, and in a field close by were a troop of Kangaroo, lazing about as they do. I didn’t quite get to Bunbury I came across a shopping centre with a post office, I needed some stamps for some postcards, although I was not on holiday I thought I should make an effort.
I had driven far enough and chose to head in land to see what I could find. It became very rural very quickly all I passed were villages ans communities most often at cross roads. On the main roads there was the odd cafe or garage, as well as small businesses feed merchants featured, I was in cattle country, the fields were flat and lush green. Some fields had watering apparatus, where water lay the indigenous scrubby trees remained, no point in grubbing them out cattle won’t graze on water logged marsh.
At a place called Harvey I stopped at an information centre, to find out what was in the surrounding area. I opted to go and look at the Harvey dam, from which there were some good views but there was no real scope for taking a hike anywhere, so I took some pictures and moved on to Clifton Lake where I read there are Thrombolytes, which are primitive living organisms which create limestone jumps on the lake bed as they extract calcium from the lake water.
I took a smallish road back to the coast where the lake is, I stopped a couple of times to take photos as the light was really good. The area around Clifton Lake is a globally significant area for migrating birds. I passed the lake to have a look at the sea then headed back to where the Thrombolytes are. The site is at the end of a wooden walkway over the lake a few hundred metres from the car park, again I grabbed some puctures, but hung around watching birds in the reeds, and a lizard sunning itself on the sun warmed wood.
Next I needed to stretch my legs and I remembered I had passed a parking area near a circular walk about 5 km’s long. The walk was quite Holly and the terrain very rocky made of limestone. I kept seeing what looked like prints from Jurassic park, and it took me a while to figure out what they were, at the time I decided they were Kangaroo tracks, but later after some research I decided they must have been Emu tracks they were just like the pictures and Emus gave been spotted in the area. At the point where the track looped back I heard something in the bushes that was quite big I like to think it was the Emu I had been stalking. The path goes on a one way detour up high at one point and I took the detour and had some rolls and Tasmanian blue cheese whilst enjoying the view.
I took the coast road back through Rockingham, which seemed to be fully of heavy industry, and Fremantle which I had not seen from the fishing port end. There was a Ferris wheel and lots of sea front restaurant chains.
It had been a good road trip and I think I got a good flavour of the South Perth area including the farming landscape. For dinner I went to the Balti Indian restaurant, and retired early to bed I had a hike planned for Sunday.