Monday 9th September, 2024

On Wednesday we drove from Morawa to Mingenew. We passed into the wheatbelt early in the drive, which meant much fewer wildflowers. Later in the journey it became more interesting as there were hills and quite a long drive down what felt like it had been an enscarpment. The day was cloudy and there had been a little drizzle in the morning and we had one bout of heavy rain on the journey.

When we arrived we went to the lovely Mingenew Bakery for hot drinks, sandwiches, and a shared peach tart. We shopped, then checked into the caravan park at about 2.00 p.m. They wisely gave us a site that was a bit tricky to drive into (if you have a caravan) and assigned Marie and Geoff a much easier site. They didn’t arrive until after 4.00 p.m. and by then it was raining heavily, which made set up quite unpleasant.

We had drinks under their awning in the late afternoon. We had to really rug up to be warm enough to sit outside, indeed, that included lap rugs, and it was good to do some catching up.

The next day was extremely wet, with squally fronts coming through, continuing into the afternoon. Stephen and I took it as a sign we could have a rest day, though I did some washing and Stephen walked over to the shop in a dry spell. Geoff felt like a drive so they went out for a couple of hours.

On Friday we went out for a walk at Depot Hill. Hats with fly veils helped us to stay out much longer than we otherwise could have done, although the men seemed OK. We saw cowslip orchids as well as everlastings. The walk seemed to just peter out into a number of dead end trails, so we didn’t actually get to the top of the hill. There were trenches left over from WW2, hence the name, Depot Hill.

We then drove to a tracking station that is set in fields of canola. We weren’t allowed into the tracking station, but had our lunch with a view of telescopes and canola. Naturally, we had bought sandwiches/rolls and cakes from the bakery for our lunch. It meant we could all make our own choices of food.

In the evening we had fish a chips made by our hosts at the caravan park. We decided to stay in our individual vans to eat, it was still very cold and after our day out it was good to just be comfortable inside.

On Saturday we went to the Coalseam National Park. My impression from our last visit was that it wasn’t all that interesting, with mainly yellow everlastings. However, this time I found it quite beautiful. There was some water in the river, swiftly flowing, and as it was quite a cool day, we could really enjoy being outside. We stopped to do the river walk, then went up to Irwin Point for the view of the Gorge.

We had our Bakery bought lunch in the car, there were still enough flys to be a problem, though not as bad as the day before. On the way out we went to the Miners Campground. This was very lovely as well. You could walk down to the water and there were some little waterfalls. As well, there were lots of everlastings. There is a day use area as well as the camping ground. It looked so beautiful that I really wanted to come and camp there.

Geoff had to negotiate two water crossing in the park. The first one didn’t have a paved ford, and it looked like other drivers were wondering what to do. There was a marker to show depth and it didn’t look too deep. Geoff drove across in what appeared to be a shallower part on one side, and didn’t have any problems. The second water crossing was a proper ford and we could see how deep it was. When we were leaving there were people walking across the ford, so we could really see that it was shallow. We didn’t have to go through the other crossing again as we left the park another way.

Of course, I was wondering how we would go in the Sherwood, especially going up and down a couple of steep parts of the road. The internal roads were gravel, but very well graded, so we would have been OK. Being higher, the water crossings would have been OK, though I might not have sensibly chosen the side of the road for the first one, as Geoff did.

In the evening we went to the pub and three of us had the savoury stew with vegetables that was on special and Geoff had a more traditional pub meal of chicken. It was a good way to round off our time together.

Of course, we must speak about the telescope. Stephen found he could hire one from the shire council. He picked it up Friday morning and spent some in the afternoon trying to work out how to use it. There were two problems with the equipment. One of the tripod legs didn’t have a lock, so it could only be used in the lowest position. In addition, the scope, that helps you locate stars, appeared to have a flat battery. Eventually he was able to work out how to focus on distant objects such as leaves and a distant RV’s lights and window.

The main object was to use it at a Stargazing and Planisphere at a free camp about 20kms south of Mingenew. We are close to the Yandanooka Town Hall, which has flushing toilets that are always open.

Last night, after talking with Matt on Facetime, we set up the telescope and took it out to the Planisphere. Stephen had found it very frustrating to use when he tried to see stars on Friday night. It remained frustrating. In the end he was able to focus on the sliver of the moon. We could see the craters even though the moon was very, very bright. Unfortunately, there was some high cloud developing and the night wasn’t very clear.

We have booked into a stargazing fest at Curtin University in a few weeks time and are hoping to learn a lot more about how to actually use a telescope. It seems that it isn’t simply a matter of getting out on a dark night and finding individual stars and planets. You really have to know what you are doing. Still, we have learned quite a lot from this experience and now have some knowledge. It doesn’t help that the earth is rotating at quite a speed. Some telescopes have in built tracking so that they stay aligned, but otherwise you have to manually adjust for the rotation.

Otherwise, this is a lovely little spot to be. There were seven of us altogether last night, mostly spread out although there is a caravan quite close to us. The occupants also came over to the planisphere after dark to see the stars.

I will upload the Apple generated slideshows to Youtube later so that they can be viewed at a higher resolution. Unfortunately WordPress downgrades the videos.