Wednesday 30th July, 2025

Our overnight in Glen Forrest was Friday 25th July, so it has taken a few days for me to get around to writing it up. This was our third time of going to a Wildflower Society talk in Glen Forest and staying overnight in the carpark. We expected it to go smoothly, and it did.

We arrived in Glen Forrest at about 5.00 p.m. and went to the carpark to make sure there were no ‘no camping’ signs. Then we went and parked up near the Octagonal Hall and heated up some leftovers as our evening meal.

The meetings start at 7.00 p.m. and we were in plenty of time. The speaker, Yolanda Keeble, has done a three year survey of the flora and fauna of the Wongan Hills region. This was of interest to us as we have visited Wongan Hills a couple of times for their wildflower festival. It was very interesting to find out more about the local area.

There are a few wildflowers here in Glen Forrest at the moment.

She is planning a wildflower walk on Saturday the 13th September. We were planning a short wildflower trip with Marie and Geoff, and after exploring some options with them we’ve decided to go to Wongan Hills for four nights and possibly do the walk with her. It works out well for them as it’s a fairly short time and the accommodation for Glenn is suitable and not as expensive as other options.

And we love the area and it will be good to go there in September for the first time as when we’ve been to the Wildflower Festival it’s been very hot.

We bought her book on the survey and it makes a suitable birthday present for Stephen. We’ve had one celebration with Matt on Saturday night, went to see Fame, the musical at Penros College on his actual birthday yesterday, and will have another celebration this coming Sunday. Matt bought a food hamper for Stephen that includes two cakes, so we have taken it as a sign that we should have two celebrations.

We haven’t experience a mid winter at home for a while, and it happens that we are having a really good winter this year, very cold and lots of heavy rainfall. I love it as I can’t bear the hot summer weather unless I’ve had a fair bit of really cold weather. But, it was very cold in our loft bed in the Sherwood and I just couldn’t get warm enough. We had two options, one was to put the heating on again and the other was to try using a double sleeping bag on top of our doona. We tried the sleeping bag option and were soon toasty warm.

We slept in until 8.00 a.m. the next morning. Once again the heating went on and we had our morning cup of tea and washes, then headed out on the walking trail that comes through the village. Then it was back to the cafe for breakast. We ordered a big breakfast to share and they divided the food onto two plates, always much appreciated as this doesn’t always happen. We were sitting outside as it was full inside, but managed to find a sheltered spot, with lots of interesting things to watch, parents, children and dogs.

After breakfast we went for another little walk and found a running stream. Then we went home, arriving at about 12.30 I think. Matt was coming a bit after 4.00 p.m. and we needed time to unpack and rest a bit.

There is a bit of work involved in going away for a night, but well worth it.