July 3rd

Again we walked around the old home at Wanjarri Station. It all appeared so desolate. The goanna, and probably his mates have left wonderful tracks in the fine gravel. Kangaroos have been about as well, but we have not seen them.

The road back out to the highway was slow over the very rough rocky surface.

The Goldfields Highway is bitumen so we were soon passing the Mt Keith Nickel Mine with its huge mullock heaps.

The EC cabin is again full of branches from the Mallee eucalypt found at Wanjarri.  I clip the leaves as we travel ready for dyeing on my return home. I am concentrating on the Mallee family for a book project. John is able to identify most of them as long as we can find enough information about each variety. At least we need the leaves, nuts and buds. The trunk type and shape is useful as well.

We also have Native Pear this morning, along with its oval shaped green fruit.  Evidently the aboriginals roasted them and ate them and they proved to be a good source of nutrition.

The small water courses that we cross all have a good lush growth of trees many of which are the very distinctive Desert Red Gums.

John and I have visited Wiluna some 20 years ago and today it has many new services and appears to be a much tidier township. The Wiluna Traders is a very good Supermarket so we stocked up on a few necessary supplies. Calling at the Shire Offices proved to be a good move as the lady receptionist was able to tell us a lot about the area as well as the Art Gallery at the rear of the building. We saw some really lovely paintings which have been done by local aboriginal artists. A very distinctive style of art is produced by the group of artist who work through this gallery. Tjukurba Artists are called Birrilibura Artists.

We left Wiluna at about 2.00 pm and took well over 2 hours to reach Lorna Glen where we planned to camp the night. The road was rough and corrugated in places but the scenery quite picturesque with Marble gums, a huge variety of acacias, thryptomene and very green, healthy looking Spinifex.

The juvenile marbel gums are particularly attractive with round blue/glaucous leaves. The recent rains have made Lorna Glen desert area very green.

Hakea (Corkwood) blooms 

Trunk of the Hakea (Corkwood) tree

Our camp is in a clean flat area and there is plenty available artisan water of good quality.