Low tide at Lights

Beaufort Inlet

We arrived at Millers Point in the afternoon warmth, as small black coots swam low in the water and left a wake of tiny sparkling suns.

Coots feeding

Millers Point juts out into the Beaufort Inlet on the Pallinup River and the campsites are scattered among straight trunked eucalypts and twisty paperbarks.

From our spot we could see and hear the distant ocean which pounded on the bar to the south east and look around to the north west where the broad expanse of water disappeared behind hazy blue hills.

Looking inland

It is quite obviously a haven for fisher folk. The other campers took off early in the morning and returned in their dinghies late in the afternoon, leaving the point deserted apart from us and a couple from the eastern states.

The quiet thrum of generators that preserved their catch was the only human made sound to be heard during the day. Late in the afternoon the pelicans flew in waiting for the scraps from the returning fisher folk. The pelicans gave an occasional grunt; perhaps a 'hurry up and feed us' or a 'it's all mine not yours'. I don't know.

In amongst the rocks I found piles of silvery discs, the relics of successful fishing ventures.

The sandy beaches were covered in webbed footprints.

An old sign whose original intent has long since been lost

We walked to the lookout through a beautiful glade of eucalypts with trunks of ochres and greys.

 In the thick mulch below grew autumn flowering bunny orchids.

And on the fallen branches grew these lovely lichens.

The view from the top past flowering Hakea laurina towards the bar and ocean.

According to South Coast Rivercare the Pallinup River rises in The Yilgarn Plateau south of Katanning with some salt lakes draining into the catchment in wet years. All the river is saline to some degree. The salinity has increased since clearing in the catchment region especially since the 1950's. Melaleuca cuticularis (saltwater paperbark) and Eucalyptus occidentalis (yate), are found growing here as both do well in saline conditions.

Walking in Harewood

When we first walked this trail eight years ago it was a one hundred year forest. 

This hillside was part of a much larger logging holding that was taken up by the Millar brothers in 1895. The Millars opened their first mill in Denmark in 1893 and by 1905 all three of their mills were closed. By then the loggers had clear-felled all the ancient karri trees, and left a bare and ravaged landscape.

Timber cutters working on karri tree (Denmark Historical Society)

The demand for timber had been so high that the millers worked night shifts as well. Can you imagine working on a cold wet winters night with sharp steel blades, noisy machinery and massive timbers - by the light of kerosene lamps? 

Old timber mill  (Denmark Historical Society)

It is quite different now. The steepest parts were abandoned and the bush re-covered the hillsides. Over time the gentler muddy red curves were coaxed into grassy green mounds by new settlers. Pretty but challenging. Today the patchwork of forest, pasture and vines is as varied as the people that now live there.

Last weekend we walked in this forest as summer gave way to autumn. As we arrived a deep indigo cloud dumped its load and a couple with a young child sheltered in their car. 

The rain had coloured up the mosses and lichens and frogs sang in their freshly moistened skins.

A fantail peeped close by as it flicked and fanned its tail

Old bark turned back

Shadows played

Strands of discarded summer trailed high overhead.

Cream karri trunks ready for the new season

The allocasuarina's deep corky bark flaunted the past, hid the present

  

Red winged wrens danced a duet  through the undergrowth

Tannin dark water rippled over black slippery rocks

In a pile of fallen bark at the base of a one hundred and eight year old tree, the child told us he was making a special spot for the forest fairies.

Did you have secret fairy spaces in your childhood? I did. I remember a special place at the top of our bush block in Parkerville. It was nestled in an ancient burnt out tree stump. The floor was mossy green sheltered by the jagged charcoal edges of the stump. In the hollowed middle green snail orchids grew as high as a fairy's waist. Outside in spring bright yellow cowslip orchids bloomed. In grade one we had a spot in the bush above the school. This place was encircled by grass trees and it too had orchids; from memory they were tiny pink fairy orchids.

I nearly missed the beauty of the reflections in the creek. It was only when I sat down on the rocks in the creek - slowed down to watch the wrens - that I saw them. Special places - it doesn't take much really - slowing down, seeing, imagining.

Kissing the Earth

Just love this from Lisa Congdon's blog. She is an illustrator and artist from San Francisco.

One small bay

Just before I started my last essay, yes I finished it two days ago, we took a break to Albany to check out the landscape around Possession Point, one of the iconically named landscapes from the days of first European colonisation. Here are a few images taken at Whale Beach. This name too harks back to former whaling days. 

And this too - just one of life's puzzles.