Mingenew Moments

 

A sea of yellow

Mingenew  If you have watched TV recently you would have heard of Mingenew a smallish town 360km north of Perth inland from Geraldton in the centre of wildflower country.   We try on our winter excursions north to time our return trip to at least spend a few days in the wild flowers. As they had done a couple of times before our good friends from down south headed up to north to could catch-up and spend a few days together taking in the sights around Mingenew. 

Pink wind mill on the way to Mullewa

Day one saw us heading north to Mullewa, across to Pindar to check out the Wreath Flowers just outside Pindar. Unfortunately, we were a few weeks early and the wreath flowers had not achieved famous “wreath” shape yet. With a diversion via Morawa back to Mingenew it was still a great day out driving thru the wheat, barley and golden canola fields and stands of wild flowers.

Is that a Koala ?

Day two saw us doing a shorter run to Coalseam Conservation Park (no dogs - so the faithful hound was confined to barracks for the day) Coalseam  which is promoted as one of the best wildflower areas in WA. It is truly a very pretty place with Irwin River cutting through rolling hills to provide small gorges, valleys, meadows, and riverbeds all bursting to the seams (that’s a poor pun) with flowers.  We even found some coal at the old coal mining site at a Miners (strange name?) camping area which also has a big camping area suitable for large caravans (no hounds though).  Great day out in a pretty place with friends.

Photo of photographer

The town of Mingenew was once the rail hub for all cattle shipments south to Perth from as far north as the Kimberly and is a clean and tidy town with lots of history.   The “famous” Mingenew Bakery lived up to its reputation and the local pub served up a bloody good steak for dinner. The caravan park in town is well priced, and like the town, is clean and well run.

My Mum loved Kenny G and her flower garden so this video is dedicated to her and can be found HERE 

The Art of Bugger All

That arrow is pointing at us!

There are times when your travelling when your just killing time for a few days or a week where you don’t unhitch the van and practice the art of doing bugger all. This was the case as we travelled south for seven nights to meet up with friends at Mingenew Caravan Park. Three nights at Galena Bridge free camp and two nights at Ellendale Pool were spent refining our “Art of Bugger All” techniques.

Doing “bugger all” is not for everyone as it takes time to get used to slowing down to a bugger all pace. 

Nothing happening here!

A typical day looks like:

Hake a cup of tea/coffee in bed, have a second cup of tea/coffee in bed, align the solar panels towards the sun, have breakfast, take the faithful hound for a long walk, drag back some wood you found on the walk,  re-align the solar panels, get the chain saw out and cut up the wood, have you seen the dog?, sharpen the chain saw, cup of tea dear?, where’s that dog?, read the book I found in the last laundry we were at,  re-align the solar panels, have lunch, have you seen that mongrel dog!, read my book, have a poppy nap, cup of tea dear?, take the hound for another long walk, did you see that blue wren?, align the solar panels, where is that bloody dog!, read my book, that duck has eleven ducklings, here dog here dog, check out the swans and four cygnets, re-align the solar panels, yak to the old fella in the next van, get home dog!, cup of tea dear?, what’s for dinner, get the fire ready to light, re-align the solar panels, have a one minute shower, tie that bloody dog up!, open that first cold beer, light the fire, get thrashed at Yahtzee again, more beer, cook dinner, wash-up, take the faithful hound for its last walk for the day, cup of tea dear?, read my book in bed, get off my bed dog!, same stuff tomorrow.

Time to move those solar panels

Sorry for rambling on but we are at Ellendale Pool doing bugger all!

Short video is HERE