Fitzgerald

I have in mind that I read once that Fitzgerald was the name given to illegitimate children of the English royals. That name may have been passed down to the Fitzgerald River, but make no mistake, the claim for this region as a national park is quite legitimate indeed. As an example, half of the orchids of WA grow in this national park on the south coast, and 70 of those grow nowhere else in the world. Cause enough to claim a national park, but the tally does not end there.

We awoke to a glorious day in the Stirling Ranges. A leisurely breakfast didn’t encourage the ranger to come and collect our money. Instead, he seemed to leave early on a job, so we mark that down as another free camp. Funny how the free ones always seem to be the best ones.

On the road out we passed by Mt Trio, no doubt named for the three peaks on the plateau. Such a glorious morning encouraged a walk, but three hours, and the first bit fairly obviously straight up conspired with our lack of time to make us move on. Next stop was Bluff Knoll. This is obviously a famous location from way back,as there is a cafe at the bottom, and we passed a woman explaining how the walk used to be. While the walk was about the same length as the other one, this one had encouraging signage saying the first bit was very rewarding so off we went. A short walk led to the base of the cliffs, giving a good view of the rock face, and then back across the plains, as well as into the Western Stirlings.

Having finally escaped we drove back towards the coast, stopping at a wildflower exhibition along the way. This seemed to be an annual thing, open for a couple of weeks each year at this time. A group of older people associated with the local historical museum go out and collect wildflowers and put them on display. There would have been several hundred on display, mostly with scientific names. If we had more time, we could have investigated the extensive collection of pressed flowers in the fridge in neat files, the books of wildflowers, and also all of the other museum artefacts. We could also have visited the malleefowl exhibition which we passed over amongst howls of protest from the rear. Doing all of those and we would run out of both time and money long before we get home.

From there it was down to the coast into the Fitzgerald River National Park. The highway is 60km or so inland at this point, so the road in is both unsealed, and through mostly undisturbed coastal heath. Many of our familiar wildflowers were represented in abundance, but many new ones also appeared. While we should be surprised at the vast array of new plants that keep showing up, we have been reading for so long about this “biodiversity hotspot” that we just expect to be continually amazed. Each time you stop to look at something new, you will see several more by the roadside. No wonder a detailed look would turn up so many different plants.

The coastline here is typically rugged. Having left the granite and limestone behind for the moment we are now in a sedimentary area and so the formations are somewhat different. I guess that makes for different soil as well and hence the new plants, as well as our old favourites which must be more tolerant of different soil types. Our campsite tonight is at St Mary’s Inlet, just beside point Ann. The beach is pure white and the ocean a rich blue. The only downside is the wind coming straight off the southern ocean, but fortunately our campsite is sheltered in thick coastal trees.

Meaningless trivia for the day. We have been speculating on the origin of the name “1080” for the poison used to bait foxes around here. There was an explanation of the origin at the wildflower exhibition. Sodium Fluoroacetate was a poison synthesised in Germany long before anyone knew it was the active ingredient in the poison bush which covers so much of the country around here. Apparently 1080 was an invoice number which was somehow significant in its development. Now you know!