A DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS

 A DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS

FROM OUR AUSTRALIA 3 LOG : FROM CAIRNS TO PERTH JULY 1995 TO JAN.1996

 

This last leg of our journey took us to the far south of Western Australia, to Albany and the Porongorups and Stirling Ranges.

 

 "Tell 'im that Bruce sent you"

We met a bird-watcher in Albany on a previous trip in 1993 who told us about Waddy's Hut in the edge of the forest skirting the Porongorup  Hills about twenty miles north.  With Bruce's message to back us, we asked the Ranger in the Porongorups National Park if we could stay a couple of nights and he gave us the key.... So on this trip two years later, we knew where we were heading.

FROM OZ 3 LOG,'95 - '96

Wednesday Dec.20^th

Tony....

We left Albany and made our way up towards the Porungorups, a wooded range of hills to the north. We stopped to pick up a Wood Duck, and later a Bronze-wing, dead on the road. They must have been knocked down very recently before the scavengers got them. They were both warm. The pigeons really ask for it as they pick up grit at the edge of the roads, apparently quite oblivious of anything passing and then fly up at the last possible moment.

 

Heading towards the Porongorups

 Bronze-wing Pigeon

 

 

Waddy's Hut. Bill Waddy was once the editor of the Perth Times and he had this forester's hut erected in the forest at the foot of the Porongorups as a hideaway. When he died the hut passed to the National Park Authority, who let occasional campers stay for a night or two.

 

 

 

  

We drove along the southern edge of the hills till we found the track up to Waddy’s Hut. There was no-one there, nor was the usual tin with the key. We posted Kim through a window that had lost its glass [why?? For some reason it didn't occur to us to try the door!] before we found the door was open! The place was full of dead leaves and even twigs and had much gone back since we last saw it in ’93. After a brew we decided to go round to the Ranger HQ  and clear it with him to stay for a couple of nights.

Luckily he was there and not out and about Rangering. In fact he’d only started the job yesterday, having moved up from Cape Arid Reserve “ To give the wife a neighbour and the kid a school’  he told us. He looked bemused when we asked if we could stay in Waddy’s Hut. He obviously had no idea about its loose arrangements and gave us the nod. We find we now have to pay a fee for both the Porongorups and the Stirlings. We coughed up, had a quick lunch in the car park by his HQ and then back to the hut. Mary was most insistent we rushed back in case ‘squatters’ had moved in ahead of us. In actual fact, not long after we got back and were still moving our stuff in, a Landcruiser arrived and looked long and hard before reversing out, so maybe her hunch was right.

We hadn’t long settled when the thunder started and soon we had a downpour. So out with all the buckets and bowls we could muster to catch rainwater despite having filled the van tank before leaving Albany this morning. The big rainwater tank beside the hut is connected to the gutter at the front of the hut but the tank sounded hollow and empty and a hole about 6” up from the bottom was roughly stuffed with a stick and a rag but it was leaky. I instantly made things worse by trying to fit a wooden peg. The metal at the base is paper-thin and things went backwards as soon as I touched it.

Just in front is an apple tree with one tiny apple and across the track is what looks like a nectarine with plenty of (unripe) fruit on it. It took Kim, as ever the hunter/gatherer, to make the real find...a plum out the back, with lots of ripe and succulent fruit!

As we had the benefit of ‘civilization’ we decided to have our ‘Christmas’ on the solstice which is tomorrow. So she and M. have been brewing up ideas and this afternoon as we were still rained off, Kim carried on painting, I wrote this log and Mary started on the ‘Christmas Fayre’. I should have plucked and drawn our two birds before the rain set in!

K. & M are now composing menus around what grub we have and can cook. There’s an oven in the little stove in the hut but we aren’t sure how it’ll behave. M & I didn’t use it last time we were here. Luckily there’s some dry wood under the hut and I’ve put our previously-collected ligno-tubers in the oven to dry. They’re the next best to mulga for good hot heat.

The rain lasted for well on in the day but cleared eventually and we had a little stroll in the last of the evening light. As Kim says, it’s a little holiday within the holiday. Just having CHAIRs!

 

Waddy's Hut

  

Thursday Dec 21^st Winter/Summer solstice!

Mary....

A good night. We quickly decided not to fight over the single mattress on the bedstead up the other end. Someone must have fumigated it as it smelt really chemically and toxic. So we put the tarp. on the floor to stop the drafts coming up between the floorboards and we put up the mozzie net . We are much more cautious since T was bitten on the elbow when we slept outside, unprotected , in central Queensland. He was really quite ill for several days after it. We were watched over by an enormous spider which came out in the evening and sat above one of the windows all night. It was an amputee with seven legs. But we were none too warm.

A fine morning and after breakfast of toast and the marmalade we’d made with the semi-wild oranges we found before Albany, we packed apples and an orange and set off up the very steep path over the Devil’s Slide on the col above us to go on the Wansborough Track  which cuts through the ridge from south to north. Up on the ridge we first cut off uphill in open Marri (Red Gum) woodland and a lot of various flowering shrubs scenting the air. Plenty of bees. A big party of New Holland Honeyeaters worked through the Banksias enjoying the nectar.Other birds were travelling with them.

Walking up the ridge from the Devil's Slide.

Boulders on the col, The Devil's slide

New Holland Honeyeater feeding on Banksia nectar.

 

This Western Spinebill was among the honeyeaters.

While we were stopped on the final summit, waiting for Kim to catch us up as she was drawing  we were passed by a couple of middle-aged chaps in hard hats. They were working for CALM[Conservation & Lands Management] surveying the extent of the Karri They were obviously forestry rather than conservation-orientated. As Kim says, there is an inherent conflict in the title of the organization, in that conservation sits ill with lands management which at least here in the south of Western Australia, is largely about timber extraction.

Looking south from the top.

 

 

 

 

After the rounded tops with low shrubs and shriveled grasses and herbs, and now getting blotted out by low cloud, we descended to the Wansborough Track which ran through a great area of Karri forest.

Tall Timber: the Karri forest along the Wansborough Track

The soaring Karri have a strong presence in the cathedrals of their forests .The airy canopy held on fine leaved slender branches so many metres aloft allows sufficient light down between the lance-straight smooth grey trunks to give an almost impenetrable  ground cover thicket of strong-smelling Karri Wattle.

This glorious woodland, growing as it does in areas with deep soil and over 40?” of rain a year, was the focus of the post-war Group Settlement Schemes, and over a third of the prime forest was cleared at the cost of huge sums of government money and many broken hearts and lives. Most of the Settlements failed, but the forest was gone leaving ill-drained clearings punctuated by  stumps and ring-barked wrecks standing upright and solitary .

We had a steep very slippery descent back down among the huge granite boulders of the Devil’s Slide (well-named!) and got back to the hut about two, hungry and knackered so we had an easy afternoon. K & I got firewood after our late lunch before it rained again. Thunder was rumbling all round. Kim painted, I prepared the evening meal and T did a better job mending the hole in the water tank and patched up some holes in the stove with stiff clay. Then he dug out a trench at the back of the hut where the soil is building up against the base, and by standing on the van reached over to clear leaves out of the gutter at the eaves.

We started off our festivities with early wine and nibbles. This helped us cooks! Tony sat outside watching the Western Gerygones coming and going from their nest hanging up in the tree by the water butt. He had lovely close views of an extended family of Splendid Fairy-    wrens too.

Male Splendid Fairy-wren

Tony.....

Then came our Solstice Dinner. Boiled spuds and carrots and steamed cabbage with gravy heavily loaded with caramelized onion. Then a spicy herby bread stuffing cooked in foil in the big cookpot around the Bronzewing and Duck. To garnish we had preserved spicy lemon and prunes. The whole meal was absolutely delicious. As good as any Christmas dinner I’ve ever had. The Bronzewing was especially flavoursome and gave us a surprising amount of meat. The flesh on the breast was dark but quite pale further in, so that when carving, it looked as though I was carving through a roll of different meats. Both birds were tender and we have enough of the duck left for another meal.

We followed the main course with a sweet of our own stewed plums picked from the tree Kim found. They were absolutely delicious. Good strong flavour. Excellent bush tucker!

Kim had also planned an egg custard baked in the oven, but the stove let her down so we weren’t able to eat it with the plums, but left in the oven overnight it was set in the morning and we ate it for breakfast with our muesli.

During the afternoon Mary has been secretly making up a crossword for us to do in the evening. Kim and I had also been making a start on our own but M’s was the only one completed for our evening’s entertainment. We had a lot of fun teasing out her cryptic clues. Finished off the evening with coffee and chocolate and carried on with our own crosswords.

Friday Dec.22^nd

Tony...

Peaceful night though we all heard rain and it was raining heavily when we got up, and all morning, though there are occasional breaks. Between the showers I have been decanting water from all our buckets into the water butt. My clay repair has slowed the leak to a drip. I don’t think the gutter at the front of the hut is contributing much as there’s a big hole in that too!

During the showers, we have done Kim’s crossword, with much hilarity and alterations to its structure and content as we went along!

K & M have also cooked lots of biscuits and fancy cakes, so now we are about to test them with our cuppas. (very good.)When the rain eased off we went for a walk along the foot of the range. Initially it ran through Karri but then came out on an area that looked as if it had been felled but is now regenerating. Then into an area of burnt-through Marri (Red Gum) till we came to the paddocks of the farm. Got pretty wet just as we turned back.

After a brew while M & K composed menus for the next week so we could shop properly, we drove in to Mount Barker about 20 minutes along the other side of the range to the west. Did our shopping in the supermarket and hung around till 5 o’clock trying to phone Angie at Cambridge without success. Eleanor in Perth had forwarded a letter from him and we picked it up at the poste restante but saved it to read over the evening meal.

We were dogged by rain both ways, but I’d left a tarp. over the gear on the van roof and it held, at least for this short journey. The dirt sections of the roads were a bit iffy in places with all the rain.

Settled in for an early evening. Tea of spiced rice, duck, salt beef and a salad. Another egg custard (Kim made it in a bain marie on top of the stove this time) and more plums. Excellent!

We read Ang’s letter. He planned to go to Cornwall climbing on the cliffs with Isobel over Christmas. First meeting her in N.Wales after she’s finished her shift at the hospital. No wonder we couldn’t reach him in Cambridge.

 Mary had made up another crossword which made K & I scratch our heads for an hour or so and it was ten before we turned in.

Saturday 23d Dec

Kim...

A good night, though it was STILL wet when we got out of our scratchers about 6am. Because of all the rain we were somewhat at a loss as to our plan of action. Got into the van and listened to a broken up and crackly radio weather man. After giving a ‘sheep weather warning’ he said something about frequent showers continuing in the SW section. Typical Aussie understatement for pretty-well unremitting rain for days on end!! We debated whether to run away further north in hopes of dryer weather, or stay put for one more day. We stayed put.

In the middle of the morning we were dismayed to hear cars approaching. Four cars drove up and stopped in front of the hut. Like ostriches, we sat tight, imagining ourselves invisible while footstep, voices and eventually heads appeared, passing the windows. Then a knock on the door. A girl in a short rather motheaten fur coat and very high platform-soled shoes stood in the doorway and said they hadn’t expected anybody to be here, and they’d come to hold a Wedding Ceremony!! They’d originally planned to hold it up on the Devil’s Slide, but in view of the weather had opted for the hut.

Behind her appeared the Bride, with a garland round her head and a long purple dress, three young bridesmaids, (her 2 daughters and young sister,) the bride’s mother and father, the first girl’s man, very nattily –dressed, almost like a Teddy Boy, another, rather ample woman, and in the rear, a woman in a tailored grey office suit with a briefcase under her arm, the Officiating  Officer. Oh yes,  lurking to one side was the Groom, with long hair and a well-worn anorak which he never took off so we don’t know whether he was in his best bib and tucker or had come straight from work.

They were friendly, almost apologetic, as we stood back and they filed in out of the rain. We hastily scooped up our bedding and the mozzie net which we didn’t want to grace their family album in perpetuity, and offered to clear off while they did their thing but they insisted we joined them. So we did, huddled into a corner and feeling rather de trop. I’m glad yesterday we’d slung up a branch of Christmas Tree so it looked ever so slightly festive!

 After much self conscious giggling, and squeaks from the little girls, nervous laughter and apologies all round, a ten minute ‘service’ and it was over. They invited us to their get-together in a roadhouse a few miles away but we politely excused ourselves as we’d intruded enough. And they left. Our mouths were still hanging open!

It transpired that they hadn’t checked with the Ranger, so at least we were in rightful possession! That earned us another fancy cake and a coffee to get over it.

Tony...

It belted down for the rest of the day. Kim painted, M. read and I tried stopping up more holes in the stove with the left-over clay.

 

Christmas Tree. This is one of about 32 different Mistletoes in Australia. This species grows to the size of a substantial tree and flowers at Christmas-time.

Sunday 24^th Dec.

Mary....

Decided to go up to the Stirlings today, come hell or highwater. Kim and Tony raced round to the derelict farmstead we’d found on our 1993 visit here, in the hopes of fruit. Nothing was ripe last time in an orchard behind a burnt-out dwelling and a great blue spread of gone-wild Agapanthus.

It was still drizzling. I reckoned I was better-employed clearing the hut. They found three sorts of plums and more nectarines but none ripe. However they filled their cagoules with lemons and grapefruit and by the time they got back I’d packed the van and cleaned the hut so we packed the fruit and were away.

We found the weather had cleared considerably once we got round to the north side of the Porongorups and we had distant glimpses of the Stirlings rising up quite  peakily about 30 miles north. Drove through rolling grassland and some corn. Sheep and some cattle. Tanks in all the paddocks usually with Wood Ducks standing around on the edges or out in the paddocks grazing. The farms must be fairly small blocks judging by the frequency of the homesteads set back a little from the road. Quite a lot of uncleared blocks.

 

 

Stirling Range ahead.

  

The skirts of the Stirling Range extend some miles out onto the plains this side. Already seeing new plants and Kim’s itching to get out and walk. Must be most frustrating for her. But at her pace we still wouldn’t have left Darwin where we met her off the plane all those months ago!

Being in a National Park we couldn’t wild camp and we pulled into  ‘ Pappa Colla’ a private site on a homestead. Very spacious and informal. Excellent facilities, lots of info. especially on the natural history. We could pitch where we wanted among thicker or thinner groups of tall gums with fireplace rings of stone and few occupied sites, all about 200 yards apart. We pitched in the open and immediately dashed off to the shower block.

The proprietor lent us a book about the wildlife of the area and we took it in turns to read it out in the evening but we invariably fell asleep. Tony put a tarp. over the tent and another as a shelter  extension as there was rain threatening.

 Monday De3c 25^th Christmas Day.

Kim...

What an eventful night! At some time in the early hours it started to thunder and it went on with lightning and getting closer and closer and it chucked the rain down. It woke the 3 of us and we lay there in the dark wondering when we were going to float away. Periodically Mum looked round the inside of the tent with the torch but it held up OK and we wondered if our bedroll mattresses were soaking it up through the groundsheet. In the event, in the morning they were damp but not too bad. It started to trickle into the porch and our boots were floating in a puddle so we rescued them. When we got up there was quite a lake round the back of the tent, but the rain had eased off and the puddles began to drain away. It continued showery on and off all day. Thank goodness we’d put the firewood in the dry.

 

 

After the wet night.

 

It eased sufficiently during the morning for us to put on waterproofs and walk from the camp round the fire trail on the edge of the nearby woodland with grassland the other side, and then across heathland. The soil was very pale and sandy and the ants in the track were busy spring-cleaning and carting sand out of their entrance holes. They were pale reddish brown and very aggressive. They crowded round our feet and started to swarm on us as soon as we stopped by their holes.

Walk near Papa Cola

 

Port Lincoln Parrot known as Twenty Eight because of its call

Elegant Parrot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were seeing several new plants and it was quite birdy too. Flocks of Regent Parrots, ‘Twenty Eights’, Elegant, Red-capped, Purple-crowned Lorikeets, and good but fleeting vies of Little  Eagle and Square-tailed Kite.

It’s very good for birds round our camp-site too, with superb views of Rufous Treecreepers, Yellow-plumed Ho0neyeaters, all the parrots and Restless Flycatcher.

 

In the afternoon we went for a short drive through the eastern end of the Stirling Range. A very uppy downy dirt track, cut up in places after the heavy rain.  Saw a Western Brush Wallaby. A pretty little thing with grey fur, a white streak from ear to nose, black feet and tail tip. Tiny front legs. But we didn’t stay too long as we wanted to get back and cook meal and try phoning Angie again.

 

Western Brush Wallaby

  

Second Christmas Dinner; this time spuds baked in their jackets in the fire, the remains of the duck, salad and onion bahjis with our own home-made (long job!) mincemeat. We’d chopped dried fruit, the kernels from all the plums we’d been eating,(we’d saved the stones in case they came in useful!!) a lemon, some wine and brown sugar. It was very good. With no pastry, we cooked it in a sort of crumble mix.

Mary.....

We got Ang this time. He and Isabel had been climbing down west and got home to find Paul’s wine-making stuff all over the kitchen. He remonstrated and helped him move it all out to the shed. He’d built a shelter under the cherry which was also full of his clobber! [ Paul, our house-sitter, is a pathological hoarder]They are hoping to climb on Sharpnose tomorrow if it’s dry. The time difference and long intervals between exchanges of our remarks was disconcerting and I was suddenly very aware of the 15000plus kms between Cornwall and southern Australia and rather than feel elated I was a bit cast down by the call.

Tuesday Dec 26^th

Tony....

We broke camp in the dry, returned the book to the office with a note thanking them, and set off for Bluff Knoll.

Bluff Knoll (on a fine day in '93!) The highesr peak in the Stirlings at 1099metres.)

 

It was completely overcast and the cloud was right down to the car park, coming and going but we decided to go up as far as poss, and put on our waterproofs. It was inevitable that we were going to climb it come what may, despite M’s protestations that she wasn’t going to climb in dense cloud. The walk was rated as ‘Difficult’ which alarmed her a bit. But of course the cloud is never that dense, the footpath though narrow  and very steep in places, was very obvious. 

 

Wet Ascent

 

Visibility in 1995!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had more or less continuous drizzle and rain as we climbed but once on top there was only a strong wet wind and we sheltered in the lee of the crags before going back down. We passed several people toiling up as we went down, able now to enjoy all the flowers. So many are endemic to the Stirlings that we kept seeing species completely new to us. .......Ironically, the sky cleared right away as we went down!

 

Stirling Bell, one of many endemic plants in the Stirlings.

 The photos are copies of slides taken in the 1990s with an 'up & fire' Instamatic. These were the days before digital.

The drawings were by Kim done in the field  as we waited.....and waited!.........sorry Kim! There was always the 'push me, pull me' as she wanted to stop and draw and we wanted to push on. 

It's easier now, 25 years on. We are happy to just sit.