We packed our tent and headed out early, driving east en route to the Stirling Ranges for a couple of days in the bush.
As usual we got distracted by nature parks on the way. Winejup Reserve wasn’t too exciting, but Farrar nature reserve just outside Kojonup had some nice open forest with lots of wildflowers.
The lady in the Kojonup visitor centre directed us to the Myrtle Benn Flora and Fauna Reserve just on the edge of town. This was named for a progressive teacher who used the area as an outdoor classroom through the 1960s. Here we found an abundance of wildflowers including some very pretty kangaroo paws (Jill was complaining about the paucity of kangaroo paws in our travels to then and was very happy to find some here).
Then onwards down the Albany Highway to Cranbrook where we detoured through more flora reserves. As we drove on, we started to find large ants running across the dashboard – more and more – I finally found a nest of them in a fold of my trousers where I had folded them into my socks, and in the space between my sock and the ankle space of my boot. I must have picked up some hitch hikers when I was snapping a pic of an ant nest.
After a somewhat disappointing view of the Ranges from the Sukey hill lookout (not very high, and too much vegetation for clear views) we headed east to the Stirling Ranges. This range is made of ancient metamorphosed sandstones and shales (1-2 billion years old) and thrusts up to over 1000 m peaks (not much in the global perspective, but when the surrounds are as flat as here, they do stand out.)
We took the Scenic route along Stir-ling Range Drive, a small gravel road through the centre with some nice views from vantage points along the way.
At one of our stops we were delighted to find a legless lizard pretending to be a snake. It was beautiful, and a rather uncommon find.
With our frequent stops along our route, it was close to sunset be-fore we reached the end of the road. We snapped photos of the evening sun shining past Mt Toolbrunup, before we turned into the camping ground and set up for the evening.
Next morning we set of for a climb of Mt Toolbrunup, about 600 m climb from the car park. Unlike last night, we could not see the peak – low cloud shrouded the slopes, but we anticipated it would burn off through the morning and we would get nice views by the time we got to the top.
The track started off gently, with woodland wildflowers, climbing through rockier areas with sandstone marked by fossil ripple marks, before hitting a steeper section of scree slope. Then steeper and steeper – the final bit was a scramble up among the rocks and cliffs surrounding the peak.
We arrived at the top to howling winds and 360 degree whiteout. We hung around, sheltering in the lee of rocks, for a while, getting occasional breaks showing hazy mountain ranges beyond. Eventually we had sufficient breaks to give us a reasonable 360 degree view so we snapped some panoramas and headed down. Going down was slow but somewhat less tiring than heading up. By the time we reached the car we both had legs telling us we had climbed a mountain.
After a quick lunch we decided to head to the Porongorups, a smaller range just south of the Stirling ranges. We expected to find nice nature walks here, but when we got there and consulted the maps the majority of the tracks headed up to the peaks. We decided to give more mountain climbing a miss and explored some of the lower tracks where we admired some of the huge Karri trees.
From there we drove out to Mt Barker township. Another fruitful visit to a visitor centre directed us to a wildflower photo exhibition at the local sport pavilion, where we whiled away an hour enjoying the photos.
The people there directed us to a flora reserve just down the road where, we were told, some keen locals had marked various orchids with name tags. What a great idea. We pottered around there for another hour or so, finding name tags (often with orchids that were past flowering, but also many with fine blooms). We also found some unmarked orchids, so we patted ourselves on the back for our vigilance and took lots of orchid photos.
By then it was late afternoon. We consulted the maps. Alas both Googlemaps and OSMAnd indicated that we would not arrive at our intended campsite at the Warren River until 6PM which did not give us much time to dawdle en route. After a rethink we decided to detour via the Parry Beach camp site on the south coast – only an hour drive. However as we drove through Denmark we recognised the town and realised our good friend Liz lived here. 
So we popped in to say hello and ended up, thanks to her fabulous hospitality, staying for the night. Liz also solved one of our puzzles. Around Greenbushes we had found some strange vegetative remains that we could not work out. It turns out they were the remains of an invasive weed Watsonia. Liz was very familiar with it – she has a field infested with the plant over her back fence.
From Denmark we went west along the south coast highway before cutting up into the Southern Forests. There are some lovely forests here, though we were a little depressed by the failed opportunity – most of the lookouts and attractions had minimal information boards telling of the nature. There were quite a few on the forestry history, but tales of the exploitation of the forests really did nothing for us. We’d much rather have signposts explaining the various ecological communities, telling the age/height/diameter of key trees (the big-karri, for example, has a carpark and boardwalk in its name, but no information about the tree itself!).
In the forest we drove past the Swarbrick Art Trail off the North Walpole Rd. The displays here try to capture the sense of the environmental battles that eventually resulted in the protection of many of the forests here. There is only a short walk, but the forest is nice and some of the artworks are thought provoking.
The road from there wends through some nice forest then we headed up the Western Highway to Shannon National park for a loop through more forest.
We camped the night at Shannon National Park campground. Not were we ideally would have chosen, but there wasn’t time to head on before sunset. The campsite is centred on the disused forestry camp, so the environment was far from pristine. However there were lots of Western Gray Kangaroos on the grassy areas.
After breakfast it was off to see more forests. We enjoyed the drive, marvelling at the sudden changes in vegetation – presumably changes in geology, soil, drainage, fire frequency etc.
Of course we spent more time hunting orchids too. We were especially pleased to find a hammer orchid – the only one we found. There are over 400 species of orchids in the South West of WA, so we were having some problems sorting out which was which. We came across two very nice collations of orchid photos and identifiers http://orchidswa.com.au/ and https://chookman.id.au/wp_orchids/. If you need to identify any orchids, especially from WA, these are great resources. I’ll be going back through my photos trying to key out which is which once I find some free time.
Our return trip to Ballingup took us along the Blackwood River valley. It was clear here that the trees along the watercourse of the river and tributaries were dead or highly stressed, whilst nearby trees further up the slopes were fine. We suspect that salination following the long drought, possibly with some sulphuric acidification from muds exposed to air, have caused the problem. A book we bought in Augusta had some data on salt in the Blackwood river. It had risen from relatively fresh water in the early part of this century to over 5 g per litre in 2003-2004. We assume it has got higher with the drought, but we have not been able to find more recent data. Here is a photo of the valley of the Tanjerup Brook. It serves as a reminder that the beauty of this area is contingent on good stewardship of the land, something our political decision makers are ignorant of and are failing at.
Here is an annotated gallery of photos for your enjoyment https://photos.app.goo.gl/y4ZgL6kmo6qAoRjL8.