Travelogue 2015/2 New Forest Road to Kalbarri

Travelogue 2015/2 New Forest Road to Northampton #4

#4

G’day,
                                                                                                                                                                          

          After spending two weeks at Ballinyoo Bridge on the Murchison River (we will return to the river later) we packed up camp and travelled the 200 hundred odd kilometres to Northampton via New Forest Road to restock our larder and replenish our fresh drinking water tanks. The New Forest Road connects the  north/south Mullewa Carnarvon Road with the north/south North West Coastal Highway and provides access to two cattle stations, one of which is called New Forest Station, and Coolcalaya Station, one that that has traded in cattle for Toyotas, and is now an off road adventure park, an off-road dust bath or mud bath when wet, for 4x4's and motorbike crazies. The road follows the Murchison River all the way but apart from one crossing of the river very little is seen of the actual river. At one spot the river has overflowed its banks and created a fresh water lake but few birds were seen here.  Interestingly some temporary pools of water have thousand of birds and dozens of species spending time at or near the water and yet the next pool will be almost devoid of bird life. Strange to say the least. New Forest Road has little in the ways of trees and definitely no forests. It is mostly Mulga with some Mallee on red Pindan undulating sandy soils. The wildflowers in early October were stunning with many varieties putting on a grand display. Many birds were observed but as we were on the move little opportunity presented to take pictures of birds. I did manage to get a couple of ordinary shots though,one of a Brown Falcon and one of a Bronzewing Pigeon.

img-1318 New Forest Road

Img-1319 Lesser Bottlebrush

img-1320 Lesser Bottlebrush

img-1322 Calandrinia linifolia. Parakeelya  

     The leaves of Parakeelya is another succulent that provides an excellent source of drinking water if you happen to get lost in the bush and are in need of drink. Good advice but if Parakeelya is in flower then finding water is probably not all that hard for a half decent Bushie. See next photo.

 img-1330 Maned  (Wood) Duck

 img-1334 Mum and her chicks scurrying to safety

img-1337 Calandrinia in Mulga

img-1338 Calandrinia polypetala

 img-1340
Piteanthus peduncularis. Coppercups

        This patch of Coppercups was the first we had seen of this species and we thought we had come across a rare and endangered species. Maybe we had even found a new species. We took careful note of where we had found it for future reference. Little did we know that the bush was alive with this very colourful shrub. Not only is not rare it even has a common name. We saw many red examples and a few oranges examples and some examples that had lost their petals and what was left was a yellow colour.

 img-1341 Mallee scrub. Eucalypt

 img-1343 Pilenthus peduncularis

 img1344 Pilenthus peduncularis

img-1346 Pilenthus peduncularis

When the red petals fall off the flowers look just as spectacular but they are now yellow.

img-1347 Pilenthus peduncularis

 img-1348 Pilenthus peduncularis

       Img1347 and 1348 were taken only a few feet apart and are the same species of plant. The second has dropped all of it's red petals.  

 img-1349 Pilenthus peduncularis after the petals have dropped

img-1355 Acacia

 img-1357 Calytrix brevifolia

img-1358 Calytrix brevifolia

img-1359 Calytrix brevifolia

img-1365  Eucalypt Pool.

       A low lying piece of ground that gains a shallow fresh water lake when the Murchison River floods it's banks. Surprisingly there were very few birds. In the distance, on this pool, we could see a flock of Pink-eared Ducks paddling about but too far away to get a decent photo.

 img-1369 New Forest Road

        We spent eight hours driving the 200 kilometres of this road and only saw three vehicles, at the adventure driving camp. It took eight hours because we often just got up to speed when it was time to stop and get out to admire more flowers.

 img-1370 Lechenaultia linariodes. Yellow Leschenaultia

          For a person who has great difficulty spelling cat I am totally confused on how to spell "leschenaultia/lechenaultia". Both spellings above are correct or so it would seem.

img-1372 Waitzia acuminata
 

img-1374 Schoenia cassiniana. Pink Everlastings

 img-1377( mainly) Pink Everlastings + Green Mulla Mulla

 img-1378 Schoenia cassiniana

       Everlastings grow in massed displays if the rains fall in sufficient quantities and at the correct time of the year. Seeing the land covered in everlastings to the horizon is an amazing site especially if there is a mixture of pinks, yellows and whites.

img-1379 Schoenia cassiniana. Pink Everlastings

img-1380 Pileanthus peduncularis + Ptilotus macro cephalus
Coppercups + Green Mulla Mulla

This was another brilliant display of wildflowers that proved difficult to film and capture what the eye could see. The colourful plants were everywhere.

img-1381 Pileanthus peduncularis

img-1383 Pileanthus peduncularis + Waitzia acuminata

 img-1387 Brown Falcon

img-1391 Grevillea eriostachya

 img-1393 Alyogyne huegellii. Lilac Hibiscus

            We saw more specimens of  Lilac Hibiscus growing in gardens in Spain than we have seen growing naturally in WA. One caravan park had a whole double row of them bordering the entryway.

img-1401 Bronzewing Pigeon

img-1403 Verticordia

 img-1404 Verticordia

img-1404.1 Verticordia. The Turner of Hearts

 

img-1405 Pileanthus peduncularis. 

One of the very few orange Coppercups we saw, most were red.

img-1406 Conospermum. Smoke Bush

 

img-1410 Calytrix

 img-1417. Church of St Maryl inara coeli

        One of a number of fine churches built by Monsignor John Hawes, this one built in 1936 using local sandstone. Monsignor Hawes also built the convent next door, in 1919. Northampton is one of the oldest towns in WA, first gazetted in 1864 and has a number of fine historical buildings. The town services the surrounding wheat farms.  In its early days it was the centre of a thriving copper and lead mining operations.

 img-1414 Convent of the Sacred Heart
Now used as Band B

The Principality of Hutt River is located just to the north of town. If you know little or nothing about Prince Leonard and the Principality then the following is worth a read.  click on the link.
Principality of Hutt River

Travelogue 2015/2 New Forest Road to Northampton #4 Ends

Geoff

          Next travelogue will take us west to the coast at Horrocks Beach and then north along the spectacular Kalbarri Cliffs to Kalbarri and then back inland to Overland Roadhouse. Kalbarri has big signs up on the two roads leading in to the town that advises that there is $1,000 fine for camping anywhere except in approved caravan parks. So we passed straight through their crummy town and more importantly spent NO money in their crummy town.
The lady in my GPS referred to Horrocks as whore-rocks.
Horrocks is pronounced Hor (as in horror) -icks...Hor-icks