A Day Off

For the past few months we've been beavering away in the garden every day. We've been pruning, weeding, fertilizing and getting the garden ready for summer.  We love it.  It's great exercise and we're working in a beautiful environment.  But this week we decided it was about time we took a day off to do something other than gardening.  So we decided we'd take a look at Beedelup Falls near Pemberton.  We didn't think we'd seen these falls before.  Turns out we had.  They're literally within walking distance of Karri Valley Resort where we stayed for our honeymoon more years ago than I care to mention.   

The infrastructure wasn't in place when we visited the falls on our honeymoon.  Back then we negotiated bush tracks and clambered over rocks to see them.  Ah the benefits of youth!!  Now there is a walkway that goes right around the falls with a viewing platform along the way.  So one gets great views of the falls from lots of different angles. As long as one has enough nerve to stand on the middle of the suspension bridge one can drink in the best view of the falls, looking up at them from the base.   I definitely do not have enough nerve it has to be said.   Suspension bridges never bothered me when I was younger but they do now.  Why is that I wonder?  The last suspension bridge I crossed was on a walk just out of Collie. That is nice and solid and quite big but still darned scary for me.  The one at Beedelup is quite small but definitely not solid.  And the sides, well in my opinion they do not come up anywhere near high enough!! I got about a quarter of a way across and nearly lost my nerve.  

This a pic of the bridge.  It's very narrow, one person wide and very wobbly.  The sides come up maybe to thigh height.  Thankfully there are two thick wires across the top which are great for nervous types like myself to hang onto. 

With some encouragement from my lovely husband I forged ahead, albeit at snail's pace.  But I couldn't stop long enough to more than glance up at the falls.  The rest of the walkway was just fine.  It felt solid and afforded fabulous views of the falls.  Hopefully these pics show how the walkway goes around the falls and the views to be seen.

This is the bridge that goes across the top of the falls so you can look down at them. If only they'd built a nice solid bridge like this across the bottom 😁

The lookout provides plenty of room, and seats, for people to pause and enjoy a view looking down the falls and to listen to the flow of the water and the surrounding bush.  

If you're a complete wuss like me, and can't do suspension bridges. you can traverse the falls in the opposite (anti-clockwise) direction and backtrack once you reach the bridge.  That walk takes you down a lovely path through the trees onto the look out. From there you can cross the bridge at the top of the falls and access the rest of the walkway down to the suspension bridge at the base.

There are also a couple of lovely tables if you want to stop for a picnic. We're definitely going to do that next time. 

There are a couple of good walking tracks that start at the fall.  One takes you through the jarrah trees around the lake past Karri Valley Resort.  We didn't allow enough time to do those but will next time we visit.

They might not be as grand as Niagara or Victoria falls but they're way more beautiful than my photos portray and well and truly worth a visit.  Maybe we'll see you there one day. 

Pesky Critters

Living in the country, surrounded by farming land and bush, is delightful.  But it does bring some challenges.  One of those is pesky critters like rabbits.  We've being doing battle with rabbits since we moved here.  They love pulling out new plants, and just dumping them next to the hole, eating more mature plans down to the ground or ring barking them.  When we attended an information session, run by the local bio-security group, we heard horror stories about rabbits digging burrows which undermine sheds and other structures.  We thanked our lucky stars that we hadn't experienced this.  They definitely have extensive burrows but we've only seen them well away from the house.  Until now.

When we were coming back from the veg patch the other day, R stepped on a paver which sank about five centimetres.  We thought it was the result of ant activity (they're constantly undermining the paving) until the paver then dropped further into quite a big hole.   Once we got over the surprise (and realised how lucky R had been not to twist his ankle) we took a closer look and rabbit activity was clearly evident.  At least, I really hope it's rabbit activity!!

Luckily the tunnels are not heading under the house.  It looks like they hit the pavers and stopped burrowing.  

We had a big pile of blue metal that the previous owner left behind.  So we poured a barrow full down the hole and replaced the pavers.

Hopefully that will deter them from making tunnels under our house.  We have everything well and truly crossed.

On a lighter note, we have installed a new bird bath at the end of the native garden bed that we've created.  We've had this sitting in our garage for a few years but needed to weather proof it before we put it out in the garden.  Hopefully the birds will enjoy it.  I'm not sure if I love it or not but if it keeps the birds happy then I'm happy. 

It's That Time of Year

Spring has sprung in our beautiful part of the world.   That means it's perfect weather for bush walking.  Not too hot, not too cold, just right (as Red Riding Hood famously said). So, in between gardening and other less interesting chores, we decided to avail ourselves of one of the many fabulous walking trails around Collie.

We chose to do a four-kilometre stretch of the Wiilman Bilya Trail. The whole trail is a four-night, five-day walk that starts and ends in Collie and takes you via the Wellington Damn.  Just out of Collie though there is a short loop along the walk.  This takes you across the Kaniyang Wiilman Suspension Bridge.  The bridge is named for the Kaniyang and Wiilman people who are the Traditional Custodians of the area.  Once you're across the bridge there is a short one-hour walk through the bush which runs along the river to start.  We found it an easy walk although it is fair to say, I'm not a fan of suspension bridges once they get a swing up. And that was without R jumping around like he would normally. We were both walking quite calmly.  We did work out eventually that if we both walked exactly in the middle there was less swing.  

The wildflowers were just starting to burst out which was a joy to see.  We did stop to pull a few weeds on the way.  Sadly, there were lots of Watsonia plants, which were thriving, and a small number of Freesias.  The Freesias are no more, at least for this season. 

I took some pics along the walk.  I was going to take my camera, but the battery was flat, not that the camera would improve my photography skills at all. I wish.  These snaps were taken on my phone which has got a really good Leica lens. In the hands of a skilled person the phone would probably take great shots. I'm not that person.  But I hope the photos will still give you a bit of an idea of how beautiful the bush is near Collie. 

The first three pics are of, or from, a look out along the roadside, before you get to the start of the walk.   Come to think of it, you could probably start the walk from the look out if you wanted to. 

The remaining photos are of the river (taken from the bridge or the trail), bridge or wildflowers.

We might have to do this walk again in a week or two. I'm pretty sure there will be an abundance of wildflowers by then.  

A Wee Brag

It's time to confess (to those who haven't already sussed it out), we love plants that are native to Australia.  We've heard all the rumours about them being boring to look at and difficult to care for.  But we've ignored those and have been furiously planting all kinds of native plants.  They've burst out of the garden bed we set aside and are steadily taking over the olive grove.  The end of winter, going into spring, is when most of the plants are at their best.  This year, some of them have flowered more profusely than any other.  Hence the wee brag.  We are super pleased with our efforts and how well the garden is growing.

This year, one plant stands out above all others.  Literally, it is planted on the highest part of the bank. It is our sandpaper wattle.  All the hard slog we put in earlier this year, to take out the rosemary and wisteria plants out, has definitely paid off.  We can see the wattle every time we walk out into the back yard as well as from many other parts of the garden.  It is quite a difficult to plant to get a good photo of because of its growth habit. And I'm certainly not that good at taking snaps.  But here it is, in all its glory:

A Project

Now that we've retired (yay) we have plenty of time on our hands to complete our list of projects.  What we don't necessarily have is the skills required to complete each of those projects. So, we're learning on the job and making our fair share of mistakes along the way. So far, the results have been just fine. As long as one doesn't look too closely.

Months ago, we bought a bunch of pine poles with plans to build two pergolas (or arbours?) in our shade house.  They've been sitting in a pile in the shade house waiting for us to muster up the courage to do some construction.  We finally got brave enough to have a go.

Firstly, we assembled the equipment we needed: one petrol pole digger (very handy for getting through clay), a measuring tape, spade, gloves, drill, screws, a ladder, the poles (of course) and water to keep us hydrated.

After a bit of measuring, a bit of discussion and some more measuring we dug our first hole and put the first pole in.  

Turns out, the first pole was the easiest.  After that we had to get all of the poles in line and level.  We discovered that isn't as easy as we thought it would be given the poles are round and all different lengths and thicknesses.   But with lots of grit and determination (read swearing and frustration) we managed to get three poles in:

I'm really glad we didn't cement the poles in though because several had to be taken out and redone.  They looked perfectly even and level when we knocked off for the evening.  They definitely didn't look that way the next day though.   Eventually we got the hang of it and put in a total of ten poles, six in one pergola and four in a second one. 

We were going to halve the remaining pine poles to use across the top.  But we don't have the right kind of saw for cutting them in half and didn't want to shell out for one. Luckily there were several jarrah beams lying around the place (left by the previous owners) and we were able to make use of those.  Wullah, one finished pergola ready for grapes, or passionfruit. Or both.

The second pergola was built around the seed raising table.  We've still got to put the beams across the top of that one.  We're planning to grow grapes over that to give the seedlings shade in summer and sun in winter.  We've also installed a sink so we can wash the veg that we pick before we bring it inside.  I gave it a test run with some leeks that I picked.

Instead of going down the kitchen sick, all that dirty water now gets collected in a tub and can go back on to the garden.

The pergolas are not perfect by any stretch but we're happy with them and they will work.  Now we just need to find some grape vines and passonfruit to plant.