2013 #11 Perth and Surrounds

We travelled down the Western coastal road to Perth.  Yes, now you can go just about all the way.  The country was a picture and there were many sand dunes of pure white.  The flowering trees were out everywhere, wattles, Tryptamine and others.  The Grass trees stand like eternal Aboriginal sentinels guarding the land.   They grow for miles and miles in a picture of grasses and flowers.   At one stage, while photographing a colourful flower, I momentarily got a fright when I stood up to see what I thought was an Aboriginal standing right behind me, arms held high with a weapon.    However, it was just a Grass Tree.    

We called into Cervantes and the Pinnacles once again and purchased a book and some gifts. We contacted the author of the book on orchids and he phoned us to have a chat, which was very nice of him, so information and ideas were swapped.  

Even when we arrived in Perth it seems to all be sand dunes.  They are tearing down the native bushland and replacing it with huge concrete housing and malls, everywhere.  Poor nature is being knocked off, block by block.  As habitats disappear, so do our native creatures that depend on the flora and fauna of the land.

We had an excellent time at church at Livingstone – an exciting church to be part of – very forward thinking, bursting at the seams with a good spread of all ages. Some people remembered us from our last visit, four weeks ago.

We visited Perth Zoo yesterday.  We spend an hour or so with the single female Numbat which was on display.  It is WA’s faunal emblem, but after they announced this, they couldn’t find many. They were almost extinct.  There is a large program of breeding being undertaken by the Zoo.  I met the Numbat breeders and scientists and had a good talk about Numbats.  The Zoo also had a great DVD on the Numbat.   This new information will be added to the book I recently wrote for the proprietors of the Stirling Range Retreat who are great conservationists.

We quickly dashed over to Kings Park, while the weather held out for us and strolled around the floral displays of native plants.  We ran into the “Adorable Florables”.  They dress as flowers and run shows on the native flowers.  I managed to have my photo taken with them.   They are from a Perth Theatre company.

A farmer who moved in behind us this afternoon said that a few weeks ago they had no water in their dams or tanks and now they are all overflowing.  He said this is the first time they have been like that for many years.  So God has been good sending the rain to bless all the farmers and the countryside, clothing it with majesty and beauty.

We are heading further south tomorrow to Busselton.  So the weather will probably get even more severe than it is at present.