Edges of Australia:Wildflowers, Wild Gardens and Wild Places

 

I am back in the UK adjusting to the time and place The last leg of the journey in Western Australia staying with a friend in Perth gave me some free time before returning to the UK. Her amazing garden is hung with all kinds of collected objects from bird cages to skulls collected from the bush.

Only a week ago I was walking around small, intimate reserves in the suburbs allowed time to explore wildflowers growing in the warming Spring weather.  (would be good summer temperatures in the UK). Reserves can be a track of land beside a road or much larger pieces of land where development is not allowed.

Dunsborough Donkey Orchid

Granite Petrophile

 And then the big days out to see the wonderful  Pinnacles country at Nambung National Park to see the Pinnacles in the desert and the Stramatolites at Lake Thetis in Cervantes. These are the billions of years old bacteria famously talked about by Dr Brian Cox in his programme for the BBC in the Human Universe.

New Norcia, the only Catholic monastry in Australia. A sneak into the monastery grounds

Blue Leschenaulta on the way back home

 and a final day before catching my flight at Rottnest Island with the salt lakes above and a walk around the coast below. I walked for England and covered most of the Island!

 

Thankyou to all my friends in Australia who helped to make the work both teaching and pleasure and for sharing a cuppa and your favourite wild (and not so wild spaces with me)