A bit late making camp yesterday arvo and ended up in a farm driveway.
Looked like it doesn’t get used, so we made use of it for the night, Tom has the most important job of setting up the out house each evening. We are only about 30 klms from New Norcia. Only 6 degrees here, and the campfire didn’t have much effect on the chilly breeze. We packed up and left by nine.
All our trips over West, we haven’t been to see the Historical town of New Norcia. Stopped for a view of the town on the way in.
Then gathered with a dozen or so others and walked the 2 hr tour of town.
Well worth doing. The guided tour took us through all the old buildings, from the early 18oos.
Magnificent churches, collages, dormitories.
A fully self sufficient community, including flour mill and bakery, still working till 2008. A great display of farm machinery as well.
It’s all owned and run by the monks. The bakery has now closed, but they still have scones and specialty loaves of bread for sale at the entrance building. So we didn’t come away empty handed. We were told they keep the place going by now offering it for school camps, and the like.
Most of the live ins are practicing monks. Stopping work to pray 7 times a day. Ok, been there done that, interesting ,with beautiful buildings, but could not help thinking of the life the young children, would of had living in the orphanage.
I don’t need to go back again.
Next it was a late lunch at the servo, also run by the church, yes they have it all sewn up.
Did a couple more hours on back tracks heading east before making camp for the night. It’s time we started heading back North.
Neil is quite the bush chef, cooking up a storm most nights. Kathy keeps an eye on the pot as the sun goes down.
Another great day ,and also a few different flowers as well.
We have booked to do a tour of the town New Norcia tomorrow, so will camp in an area just out of town, tonight.
The leaders job is to do the spotting, weather it be wildlife, flowers or a place to camp at the end of the day.
Nothing is planned ahead, so stopping and wandering into the bush every few kilometers, is great, although I am always last to get back into the car and often hear a car horn giving me the hurry up !
So many beautiful little orchids can be found once you know what to look for, some are only a few centimeters high, and hidden amongst the scrub.
It becomes a real challenge trying to find different varieties.
When we pull up we wander in different directions and then yell to each other, when we find some.
I don’t think any of us realized how much enjoyment we would have doing the wildflower trails.
We are finding that gravel pits and quarries are good to make our camp in. The areas are big enough that we can spread out, have a decent campfire, and no one else around. Neil can have his country music …loud.
The rest of the day was taken up visiting small towns and wandering through bushland.
We are now finding lots of different coloured flowers.
Also nice banksia bushes and the odd orchard. 
Hard to pick which photos to upload here as i have taken so many.
We ended up camping in the bush, no highway noise around here.! 
Starting to cool down now as we are not far from Perth and not all that far from the coast. We packed up in misty rain, so much for our washing ! We headed out through Pindar, the best place to see the unique wreath flowers, which hopefully will be the highlight of the wildflower trip.
They grow on the edges of a sandy road 10 kilometers out.
Not fully out yet, but we may come back this way in a month or so, should be in full bloom then, but still worth seeing now.
Happy with our find we headed out again, exploring some of the tracks a local had suggested to Kathy to do.
Acres of canola everywhere as well as more flowers.
Had some lunch at a nice spot called the glassiers 
More driving, more photos and so many towns, I can’t remember where we went or in what order.
Had some fun with the camera at an old school site, where there is still a rock path across the salt plains, that the children used to get to the school.
Finally we booked into a caravan park at Mingenew.
Most towns have beautiful, well preserved buildings from the 1800s. And most are open to the public and free to visit. Monsignor Hawes was a architect and constructed a lot of the magnificent buildings. 
Time to head out of Mullewa and find somewhere to camp. Tom seen a nice clearing over the railway line at Indarra. 
So we set up in a clearing amongst a paddock of flowers.
Yes, right beside the track, opposite the station, the train doesn’t stop there anymore, but the drivers tooted at us every time they went passed. 
Think they liked the look of us all sitting around the fire. So it became quite a ritual every hour, yep hourly, but strange enough they didn’t wake me during the night.
It was about 6 the next day when we woke, there had been a light shower of rain sometime during the night, so I just had to go for a walk among the flowers, not ready to open up to the day yet.
Morning walks for photos, trains rolling on down the track , breakfast by the fire, life’s good. On the road again by 9.30, doing wildflower trails around the area. So many flowers now ,and the photos don’t really show how spectacular they are, and it is only early in the season yet.
I’m in photography heaven on this trip. 
The evenings are quite cool, but ok sitting around the fire. As for the days, sunny and still able to wear shorts and tee shirt. We are both really enjoying this trip, so much fun travelling with these friends. We travelled from 9.30 to 3.30 and found we had done about 110 klm and were 50 klm back up the road to where we stayed last night.
Oh well tomorrow’s another day.
as well as camels, emus , and more birds, its the first time I have seen budgerigars in the wild, great spotting by Kathy !
Even the mere males are starting to look for wildflowers now,
which is great because they are happy to pull up and let us girls wander and take photos.
Lots of stops today. Finding there are so many different flowers and colours on our walks. Also found many bird and ant nests. All interesting.
Finally we pulled into roadside acres in the Dagga Hills area.
Lots of firewood and a beautiful sunset.
Found a great area on the Gascoyne River.
So much birdlife here.
With plenty of daylight left I was able to go for a walk along the bank and take some photos. 
There wasn’t much firewood where we pulled up so Chris and Neil went off and found enough wood for the night .
As there were no other campers around , they set the fire up in the middle of the track.! As you do.! 
Another night of laughter and drinking.
Not sure how far we travelled on the first day, but we pulled into a clearing off the road in the Mulga Downs area.
We set up camp and Neil showed us how a campfire is made. A few drinks and dinner by the fire, was a great way to start out. A beautiful evening, so we sat out under the stars till bedtime.
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