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Bunbury
The area was once used as a land-fill dump. Like so many of the parks and reserves in Australia, this area has been saved from development because it was considered to have no value.
The purple flowering plant is Hardenbergia comptoniana. It is very widespread across southern Western Australia, and the very similar Hardenbergia violacea is common in the coastal areas of the eastern states. They have a number of common names. Signs indicated that the area has been intensively replanted with natives since the time it was used as a waste dump.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/08/27
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/08/27
Fluoridation of drinking water has made millions of childrens' teeth more resistant to decay and done no harm. Low levels of fluoride occur naturally in some water, it is only quite high levels that can cause problems.
Dolphin Discovery Centre, Bunbury
It is full of interesting displays and information on sea life, particularly dolphins. Perhaps the feature that struck me the most strongly was a video showing the lead-up to, the birth, and the immediate aftercare of a baby dolphin in the centre's 360 degree theatre.
Our visit was on 2022/08/27
Bunbury Art Gallery
The artist is Adam Hisham Ismail of Perth
There were many other interesting pieces. The Bunbury Art Gallery's exhibits are far better than those I've seen in the Perth Art Gallery for several years. The Perth gallery has some excellent art, but for some reason the administration doesn't display them. On the subject of art galleries, several provincial cities in Victoria have very good ones: Ballarat, Bendigo and Warrnambool; and Adelaide's is far, far better than the Perth gallery.
I've written a page on Who are the art experts?.
Shipping from Bunbury |
Bunbury has a port that, judging by the number of ships that were waiting to enter, was quite busy. All the ships that I saw were apparently all bulk carriers like the one in the photo above.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/08/27 |
The heap on the left (and shown in more detail on the high definition image - click on this image to see it) is wood chips. It is almost as if the Bunbury authorities are ashamed of their reliance on the export of the wood chips that are the fate of many thousands of beautiful trees that have been, and are continuing to be, cut from the forests. I believe that alumina (aluminium oxide) is also exported from Bunbury.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/08/27
Karri Forest area
It is one of the two trees that were made into fire lookouts many years ago that the general public is allowed to climb. People are allowed to climb to the lower of the two observation boxes that can be seen at the top of the tree. I suppose the upper one is still used as a fire lookout.
There is not much of a view from the public viewing box as many of the nearby trees are taller.
This is Beedelup Falls in Beedelup National Park, west of Pemberton and not far from the Vass Highway. There was a loop walk which included a suspension bridge below the falls.
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This climbing Hardenbergia is very common through the SW of Western Australia but is inconspicuous when it is not flowering. (It is also fairly common in natural scrub in the Clare hills of SA.)
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/08/29
The tall, straight trees are karris. Karri forest is typically open (that is, the canopy lets through a lot of sunlight at least to the shrub level below).
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/08/30
Moss
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/08/30
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/08/30
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/08/30
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 1.54mm (extra wide angle) lens, 2022/08/30
Walpole area
Tree top walkThis was one of the first tree top walks that I went on, perhaps about late 1996. It is in what has been named the Valley of the Giants, the giants being tingle trees.On this visit I took many photos, but none of them seem to be particularly outstanding. There is a Web site. Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 1.54mm (extra wide angle) lens, 2022/08/31 |
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/08/31
FernsSome of the ferns beside the Cattle Hill path on the edge of Walpole. I can't decide whether there are two or three species here.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/08/31
We did the WOW Wilderness day cruise with Gary Muir and his niece. Gary is a wealth of knowledge and a character who has to be experienced to be believed. I'd greatly recommend the day cruise to any visitor to the south of WA. It was far more Gary's narrative that made the cruise a hit than what we saw, but that was interesting too. We stayed on in Walpole a day longer than our original intention because the first cruise of the year was scheduled for the first day of Spring. While in Walpole we stayed in Anna’s Cottage, Boronia Avenue (street?). We found it through AirBnB. The owner attracted several species of native birds that had become very tame. We'd strongly recommend the place.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/09/01
Giant tingle loop trailThe Giant Tingle Tree Loop, north east of Walpole, is worth a visit.It is in the hills and there is a place along to road to the Loop where a great many trees have been cut down where you can enjoy the view over the coast to the south. Whether the view justified cutting down all those trees is questionable.
There are two species of Eucalypt that bare the common name tingle; the yellow tingle is Eucalyptus guilfoylei and the red tingle is Eucalyptus jacksonii. The biggest trees are protected by boardwalks. Signs inform visitors that the tingle trees are shallow rooted and if the soil near the trees is compacted by too much foot traffic it can harm the tree's health.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/01
This and the following few photos were taken on this property. I don't know the species of the flower, but suspect that it is one of the Grevillea's.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/02
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/02
Spanish moss and lichen, near Cockatoo Cottage
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/04
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/04
Stirling Range
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/09/05
This view shows fairly typical bush of the lower areas and some of the hills of the more western part of the range. I was impressed by how rounded most of the hills in the western part of the range were; toward the eastern end many were more rugged and rocky.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/09/05
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/05
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/05
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/05
Again, from the path to the central lookout. Perfect weather for the visit, enough clouds to add a bit of interest. Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 1.54mm (extra wide angle) lens, 2022/09/05 |
Bluff Knoll, the highest in the range, might be hidden behind the mountain in the centre, which may or may not be Mount Toolbrunup (thought for some time to be the highest in the range).
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/05
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/05
Bluff Knoll and lookout area
I have some other images of Bluff Knoll taken during a previous visit, in 2018.
KingiaThe remarkable Kingia Australis is the plant that looks like a Xanthorrhoea, but is not related, in the foreground. Apart from the very distinctive seed heads Kingia leaves are pale blue-green while Xanthorrhoea leaves are deep green. Both species are common in the Stirling Range.I have more images of Kingia australis on another page on this site.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/09/05
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/05
Taken, again, from the Bluff Knoll car park and viewing area. Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/09/05 |
Not far from where we stayed at Bluff Knoll house there was a very gently sloping hill up which I rode my bike on our last morning there. This was the view of the Stirling Range from the top.
The canola crops, which seemed to be one of the most common of the crops in the area, were flowering while we were there. Some were quite spectacular. Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/06 |
Wagin
Grevillia? in the giant ram park, Wagin
Most Australian wildflowers tend to be quite small, Alyogyne is one of the exceptions. It seems to be widespread in nature at least from South Australia's Eyre Peninsula to southern WA.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/09/07
Bauxite mining |
The scar left by the strip mining of bauxite.
Click on the image for a more detailed view of the hillside (from the same image).
Quoting from a web page of the Institute of Foresters of Australia... "[Bauxite] Mining commenced near Jarrahdale in 1965. Fast forward 53 years and we now have four large refineries and an annual clearing rate of 800 ha. More than 29,000 ha of jarrah forest have been cleared and 21,000 ha "revegetated". More recently, direct export of bauxite was approved and has commenced."Unsurprisingly there is serious concern among anyone interested in the preservation of the environmentally important jarrah forests of WA over the damage to this irreplaceable ecological asset. Rehabilitation of vegetation following bauxite miningOn 2023/05/24 I took part in a tour of Alcoa's Pinjarra mines and alumina refinery, including a look at some of the rehabilitated bush. I must admit to being impressed at how seriously they seemed to take bush rehabilitation. They mainly relied on replacing the surface soil, with the natural level of seeds in it, and later went over the land planting tube stock of what they termed 'recalcitrant' plants - those less likely to regenerate from the seed in the replaced soil.For some reason we were not allowed to take any photos on the tour. |
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/07
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 4.25mm (standard) lens, 2022/09/07
These are just a couple of the great many beautiful plants that will be destroyed by the bauxite strip mining.
I read on the Internet that: "Bauxite mined at Boddington is delivered by a 51km overland conveyor belt to the Worsley refinery, where it is processed into alumina before being delivered 55km by rail to Bunbury port. Ships then export the Boddington alumina to be smelted into aluminium."From what I have read on the Internet the conversion of alumina to aluminium is the most energy intensive part of aluminium production. All this devastation would once have been jarrah forest with shrub understory like that whose flowers I have recorded on this page.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm (telephoto) lens, 2022/09/07
Inglehope Arboretum
The trees there are very interesting, but the labelling that may have been done once is now a mess, with few labels remaining and some of them on what are obviously the wrong trees. It's a pity that it has been allowed to come to this when I would think a forestry specialist would be able to correctly identify the trees, produce and place labels correctly with a very few days work.
Photo iPhone 11 Pro, 1.54mm (extra wide angle) lens, 2022/09/07 |
Related pagesExternal sites...Relating to bauxite mining and its impact on the jarrah forestForestry statement on bauxite mining in the jarrah forestThe impact of bauxite mining on forest fire management A summary of Thousand Cuts report relevant to hiking
Major report by the wilderness society
On this site...A list of my Australian photo gallery filesA list of my international photo gallery files Bowman Park, Crystal Brook, SA Climate change, the world's greatest threat and challenge
Contributing to our communities Crystal Brook's Central Park, SA Destruction of roadside vegetation by a body that should be protecting it Why I support the local wind farm Western AustraliaWA images, by a new residentFleabane, my efforts to remove it in and near the Len Howard Reserve, and similar local environmental improvement projects |
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