Welcome to spring

It's the best time of year in Perth and many areas of WA - wildflower season!

I have been getting excited the last few weeks seeing more yellow (hibertia and wattle)appearing in the bushland around work (right).

Each day more flowers are appearing and I love creeping around it seeing what I can find (when it stops raining that is).

I am finding flowers I didn't see here last year like one of my favourites - the fringe lily. I had seen it once in Kings Park in Perth (the largest city park in the world!), but now I've found at least 4 plants right here.

above: Guinea flower (hibertia, approx 3cm wide) and fringe lillies (1cm wide).




Cottonheads

Last days in Gero

Well I am sadly now back in Perth. I am really feeling the cold (Perth's min temps were 4 degrees last week. Maxes have been 17-21 which is not cold by many people's standards). Geraldton was 12-25 degrees, though it is cooling down now. Sunrise on my last day of work

The strange cathedral in Geraldton (I didn't bother taking pics of this til I was on my way out of town - slack I know).
On the road again

Toodjay and Wundowie

Freemasons pub in Toodjay Toodjay

Old Wundowie Post Office

A380

One of the few exciting things that has happened in Perth in recent months was a visit from QANTAS' brand new A380 aircraft. Plane nuts flocked to the airport to witness the arrival of the world's largest aircraft.

I was lucky enough to be at work that day, so got to see the plane fly overhead and later taxi past my office! It is a very quiet aircraft which is surprising for its size, but shows how much technology has improved (the loudest aircraft here are the small older ones like the 717s)

The long way round

Finally, one of my days off was going to have good weather, so I went to Kings Park in the city. It is a huge park with views of the river and city and includes the Botanic Gardens as well as bushland.

There is meant to be a wildflower festival on throughout September, so I went with great expectations of seeing lots of different flowers and displays (like Melbourne's Flower and Garden Show I guess). This was not to be.

The only thing with came close to a bloomfield were these pink everlastings around the carpark!


I had a bit of a look around the WA botanic gardens which feature plants from different parts of WA. There were lots of Kangaroo Paw (left) and Geraldton Wax (right). And then more kangaroo paw and geraldton wax.

So I headed to a path which said 'nature walk' and once I got passed a tour group, enjoyed walking through bushland and spotting wild flowers. Most of them I have already seen at work, so I wasn't too impressed (Though I did realise I'm quite spoilt having bush and wildflowers at work!). We have lots of grey cottonheads (yellow flower below - don't know why they are called 'grey cottonheads'!), kangaroo paw and wild gladiolus (pink below)

However, I did see a spider orchid along with donkey orchids (pictured in a previous post) and also Fringe Lilies, which had been my ambition to see. I was lucky to see them because they are smaller than I imagined (2cm across) and grow on vines which coil themselves around other plants. I was really lucky to have this photo come out, because I really needed super-macro!

<--Spider orchid

Fringe Lily-->

<--Blue devils



The nature trail was meant to be a circuit. I really should have guessed that Kings Park would be as badly sign posted as the rest of Perth. Turns out it is a circuit - if you know which paths to take. They are not marked. They just cris-cross each other. So I ended up walking for a rather long time and got rather sunburned (just like the other time I went to Kings Park). I eventually made it to the perimeter road at the south end of the park and considered hitch-hiking back to my car because it was quite a way. I was very unimpressed and really don't think the whole expedition was worth it to see a tiny lily and one orchid!

Perth Hills

On the weekend I braved the rain and headed to the Perth Hills in search of wildflowers. Got rained on a bit, but did get to go for a bit of a walk and see some flowers.

Grass trees

The sun did come out in the end:

Ashes

One of my favourite spots in Perth (not that I've seen much of it) is Guildford. Mostly I drive through it on my way to Midland for furniture shopping, Spotlight, patchwork stores, but twice now I have actually stopped. There are a number of quaint antique stores and cafes and lots of old buildings. This week I stopped, not to shop (although I was on the way to Midland) but to check out the buildings and history of the area.
<--Guildford Post Office

Now an outer suburb of Perth, Guildford was originally a market town on the upper reaches of the Swan River serving the developing agricultural regions. It was a favourite area of Capt. Stirling who founded the free-settlement of Perth and established his country retreat here.

The Guildford Hotel was built in 1886, during the Gold Rush. A number of hotels were built in this time, often on street corners on the way to the Goldfields. It was built in 'Federation Free Classical Style' with a heavily embellished and symmetrical facade, demonstrating the prosperity of the time. Now painted in deep red and green, the original colours of the facade were apparently more muted.
<--Guildford Hotel, pic from www.swanvalley.com.au

The landmark hotel was almost condemned in 1991 until new owners stepped in and restored the building. It was at this time it was discovered that the original parts were contructed with convict made bricks.

Sadly, last week the Hotel burned down. It was quite a shock. Unfortunately I hadn't gotten around to taking photos of it prior to this. The fire gutted the building and caused an estimated $3million damage. But how can you put a price on history?

Pic from ABC news online-->

Stepping out of my car half a block from the hotel, almost 2 weeks after it burned down, you could still smell the smoke in the air. All that remains is the facade, tall and straight and unblemished aside from some scaffolding, trying to deny the destruction of its innards. Pansies are still growing in the flower-boxes on the boarded up windows. But burned metal hangs down from what was once the roof. And the dull-grey sky can be seen through the upper story windows.

The owners have vowed to restore it to its former glory. The current/former/temporary premier (election was last weekend, votes are still being counted, neither Lib or Lab got enough votes to rule outright, so they are waiting for the Nationals to decide who they want to side with) said the Government would look at helping to fund the restoration. Let's hope he is out of power before they can decide on this!
Most of the original 120 year old materials are gone: the sparking Jarrah boards, the intricate ceiling roses and cornices which were part of its architecture. All gone. Can the Guildford Hotel and its history really be restored?

The remains:

Flower Hunting

One of the first things I noticed when I got back to Perth was this stunning red flowered tree, appropriately called the 'Flame Tree'.

With it's skeletal figure bare of leaves, it reminded of the Kimberley Kapoc which also flowers before it bears leaves. I didn't see any in Broome (hence no photos), but they are a regular feature in the rest of the Kimberley.

This is one of my favourite paintings. It is by Broome artist Ingrid Windram. Pictured is the kapoc with its yellow flowers in bloom in front of my favourite tree, the magnificent boab. The yellow of the kapoc stands out against the greens, browns and pindan just as much as it does against the black and white in this painting. http://www.windramart.com.au/ features more of her wonderful work.

Back to Perth...

At Perth airport there is an area of protected bushland right behind my office. A colleague who has worked in native horticulture and I went for a look at plants just on the edge of this area and we were blown away by the number of species we had never seen before. It is the start of the wildflower season which I have heard is quite spectacular. According to Corrick and Fuhrer in ‘Wildflowers of Southern WA’, the South West of WA is home to more than 4000 species of flowering plants, 80% of which grow nowhere else.

However, we have been able to identify a number of the plants we have found:

Cowslip Orchid (Caladenia flava) and Donkey Orchid (Dirius corymbosa)

Cat's paw and Kangaroo paw