Highlights of the day: Visiting Muir Lake Bird Observatory, the Muir Nature Strip and seeing Lake Muir from a lookout point.

Muir Highway meanders between Manjimup and Mt Barker. We had visited the Lake Muir Bird Observatory a few years ago in June when it was disappointingly quite dry. Even at this time of year after good rain, the lake was quite a distance from the bird hide. If we hadn’t accidentally gone down the wrong road we wouldn’t have known that the lake is quite large, with lots of water. I didn’t take a photo from up there, but here is a photo from the hide.

Going down that road had another bonus, we found lots of wildflowers in the little nature strip on our way back to the highway.

We had a look at the camping area at Muir’s Bridge. It had been a possible place to stay last night, if our fridge had been able to operate on gas. It looked really nice, with a path leading down to the river (the Frankland River). However, it would have been a long way to drive yesterday after the walk in the morning. We has a very comfortable night at Manjimup and the drive today was interesting, without being too long.

We arrived here at about 3.30 p.m. (I think), and have a level slab for parking, with an extra bit for our ‘patio’. Stephen set up all the plumbing, etc. and when Geoff came over to say hello I asked him to help us set up the awning. It has come in handy as a place to use the electric pressure cooker. We are having a chicken ‘something or other’ and it is nice to have all the steam happening outside of the van!