July 21^st

The day dawned with a clear blue sky which soon clouded over and developed some very heavy sharp showers. There have been no wild flowers to mention over the last few days. After these heavy showers seeds should start to germinate.

We arrived at Niagara Dam late in the morning. It is a very rocky area. The rocks appear like ‘ironstone’. They look so rugged and dangerous to fall on. I must take care..not another slip!

After lunch we walked around the ‘Break Away Trail’ which goes around the small dam. The Niagara Dam was built during the late 1800s to supply the township of Niagara which was a busy mining area. The actual Niagara township only lasted for about 20 years before gold became scarce. The dam was not completed in time for use by these miners.

The short walk we took was dominated by rocks..their formation, their colour and the care needed to walk over them. The colours ranged from brown, tan, bright orange, white, cream and even some shades of deep red/purple..an artists delight. A deluge of water over them would be spectacular. At the time the dam wall was constructed a ‘Debris Trap’ was built as well with the aim to stop branches and other smaller debris being washed into the dam during a flood. The trap consists of a substantial iron fence consisting of uprights close together with a railing along the top and set into a concrete wall.

The afternoon improved and allowed us to light a fire and bake a loaf of Gluten Free bread for me. The shops are few and far between in the Inland and only a few have heard of GF products.

Niagara Dam

The GF bread part way through the cooking process.

John is still trying to identify Eucalypt trees. He works with a computer program which has an elimination process. There are so many different varieties. Even the Mallee trees which I am using for dyeing fabric are difficult to identify. There are 57 varieties of Mallee trees in the Murchison Bio-region alone, the region in which we were in, a couple of days ago. In total, there are approximately 100 eucalypt trees in that region. So many of them are similar..they may all have small leaves, cream trunks and tiny buds and nuts…where to next? If you are really keen you would need to compare the size and shape of the seeds or cut open the buds to see the different ways the flowers develop. I think we will leave many as unidentified.