Mingenew is all about wildflowers. The Coalseam Conservation area – about 30km away, and Depot Hill, about 10km away, are renowned areas for wildflowers. And there were there in profusion. We came, we saw, we marvelled. And we had a serious oops incident
We stayed at Mingenew on 11 Sept 2018
Kerry’s snippets in fuchsia
Getting There
Geraldton > Mingenew ~ 102kms
History
Prior to European settlement, there were many small tribes of nomad First Nations people roaming throughout what is now the Shire of Mingenew. They pronounced Mingenew as ‘Minino’, which meant ‘place of many waters’, and the original European name of the area was actually Mingenew Spring.
Mingenew and the surrounding Irwin District were first explored by the Gregory brothers in 1847, looking for grazing land. Settlement of the district occurred in the 1850s – it was ideal country for cattle. The Midland Railway opened in August 1891 and private land was subdivided, followed in 1906 by subdivision of Government land. In 1906, the town was gazetted.
Today, the town’s economy is based on farming – sheep, wheat and lupins. Mingenew is known as The Grain Centre and its grain facility is recognised as the largest inland grower-fed receival facility in the Southern Hemisphere, with a holding capacity of 403,000 tones. The Mingenew area also has many spectacular displays of wildflowers between late July to early October.
Day 1 – drive to Mingenew
We left Geraldton after the deflappers were set up by Country Time Caravans, ready to be installed when needed. The land had changed significantly to an expanse of farm land and cropping. We see lots of sheep and even lamas.
We also saw a few wind farms, which is great. To begin with the wildflowers were not as prolific as we had expected, but this gradually changed and we stopped to look at a few.
We got to the Mingenew van park early but getting in was no problem. It is a small park and its facilities are quite dated. There is only 1 sit down toilet and 1 shower in the mens abolition block. Our site is a drive through and the receptionist came out to show where to go – not at all friendly. We got in without any problems. The caravan park was pretty awful…. starting with the rude woman in the office. The flowers around the town are just unbelievable though. Fields and fields of everlasting daisies, yellow daisies and so many other flowering plants and shrubs.
We did the basics necessary to get Mobi set up, then drove out to Coalseam Conservation Area to find wildflowers. Located 33 km north east of Mingenew, the Park is a renowned site for its carpets of native pink and white everlastings, and yellow pom pom wildflowers. The area was named after the Gregory brothers discovered coal exposed within the sedimentary layers of the banks of the Irwin River in 1846. This marked the first discovery of coal in Western Australia. However, only narrow seams of poor quality coal were found; thus the site was abandoned. The park is now a popular picnic place, where remnants of its mining history are still present as well as the marine fossils embedded in the riverbank and the magnificent limestone cliffs.
A sealed road took us to the area, but then it changes to dirt. But the dirt road is very good. There are “everlasting” wild flowers everywhere – amazing. The flowers are amazing – stretching seeming endlessly like a carpet of drifting colours flowing over the landscape. Pinks of every shade, mauve, lilacs, with little snippets of white – making a magical combination; lots of lemon with bright deep yellow and an occasional orange interspersed. So much delicacy and prettiness. If my granddaughter Olive was here, we would never get her to leave – she would be sniffing every single flower and would take months to look at one tiny piece of this beautiful place.
First up we go to the Miners campground. We crossed the river (a very slow trickle) and looked at the old mine shaft. – the JohnsonShaft Viewing Platform. Just a big hole in the ground.
We did the Miners Walk Trail, which is stated as 700m return. It felt more than that, but it did not matter as we were walking through a carpet of flowers, many knee high. The profusion and colours are stunning – so many photos. The mauve photo below is a Fringed Lily. Looks more like a tiny orchid, but is a creeper from what I’ve noticed. Very pretty and would look divine growing through my pink camellias at home.
We were concentrating so hard on the flowers, we forgot that we were in a gorge.
At the top of one ridge the trail did a loop and we got a better perspective of the ridges in the area – we were looking at the junction of 2 gorges. There was a sudden noise, and 2 Galahs flew over and landed, chatting to each other.
And the flowers continued.
The views at Irwin Lookout were impressive – looking across to the far side gorge and down to and along the river. We were also looking down onto Riverbend. This looked pretty much the same as Miners camp so, given the time and the fact that we had taken ages to do the walk, we decided to leave it there and go to Depot Hill.
Depot Hill is only about 10km from Mingenew back on the road to Geraldton. It is well signposted. This is based on a walk up a gradual hill to a trench which was used for military training for the war. (ie WWII). The walk is easy and there are many opportunities to get off the track and wander around to seek out something different.
The place is a mass of flowers. I have been a bit disappointed to discover that the brilliant mult-shaded deep purple flowers are Pattersons Curse. Such a pretty colour, such an invasive species. However, the lupins (the blue/lilac flowers) are brilliant too and the pretty and delicate cowslip orchids are amazing).
The trench is just that – a trench. Not even worth a photo.
Back at the very unimpressive van park, we had new neighbours. The fellow was very excited about having seen wreath flowers at Pindar. “This is a once in 10 years event”, he said, “you gotta get out there to see it”. We got the message, but we were planning to head back to the coast the next day, and Pindar was in the opposite direction. So we thought we would get up early and drive to Pindar leaving Mobi at Mingenew. Then return, pick up Mobi and head west.
Kerry went down to the office to see if we could have a late checkout – we could easily be back and out again by 11 . “No!” was the emphatic answer. I guess we expected this as the woman had not been at all helpful. “But you can move the van to the paddock”, she said. Better than nothing we thought. So I went back to ask where that was. It turned out to be out at the front of the van park proper, and I went up to it to work out where would park Mobi and how to get it in there given the many trees that are in this CP.
Day 2 – disaster
We were up early, and quickly had Mobi prepared for the short move to the paddock. It was a bit tricky with the trees so I had to go all the way around the park to get the right line up to the paddock track. I chugged around and then headed up to the area I had picked out. But then I heard the awful sound of crunching metal and I knew we were in trouble. I had not taken enough notice of a solid low tree branch, and this had absolutely mangled our roof top aircon unit. I had been checking the van, but as the windows were up, Des hadn’t heard me yelling STOP. At least I managed to get him to stop before he reversed the van and ripped the whole roof off!!!
We parked and got out our step ladder but this was not high enough to let us see the full extent of the carnage. I went to the office but there was nobody there – the managers live off site. We waited for about 45 minutes until the maintenance man arrived and gave Kerry a step ladder – a heavy metal ladder, not all that high which she had to carry all the way over.
The aircon unit was a mess with the plastic cover pulled to the back, metal bits hanging on by a thread, and bits of insulating foam everywhere. Finally, I managed to get the cover back over the mess and tie it to the base to keep it all together – at fingertips as the steps were a tad short.
We drove slowly back to Geraldton to Country Time Caravans where we had had the deflapper kit fitted only the previous morning. We had been impressed with them. We had tried to ring them but they were not open. About half way back we suddenly thought about our insurance. But by then we were out of range – “No Service”. This was very frustrating as maybe NRMA would want us to go to a specific repair place. Nearing Geraldton, at a place called Walkaway, we got phone coverage and Kerry rang NRMA.
The NRMA, as usual, were brilliant. They explained everything, how it may take 5-7 days to get their approval unless we were on a tight schedule, then we could pay for it ourselves and get reimbursed. Small thing to achieve I thought. They immediately emailed me through what info and photos they needed. What an absolute relief. But I suspected we would be back in Geraldton for a while until they found a replacement A/C Unit and repaired god only knows how much damage to the roof!
I then rang Country Time Caravans. The first question was whether this was to be an insurance job, and if so this could take weeks. Very reassuring. The receptionist went off to talk to Steve the boss, who told us to come on in. Which we did.
As we drove into Country Time, one fo the workers said, “weren’t you here yesterday morning?”. We explained. Kerry told Steve that we would be paying for the repair and then claiming from NRMA. Steve then went out to have a look at the damage, and after an expletive, shook his head and went out to get his steps.
“You may be lucky,” he said, “just checking for roof damage”.
“You are incredibly lucky,” he said, although after the morning we had had we did not feel it. “No problems with the roof at all. We can pop a replacement in there without too much fuss. And I just happen to have a unit in stock – I checked,” he said with a grin.
“Should be ready in a few of hours”.
That conversation gave us a new meaning to the word relief. The relief was palatable… I had expected to be held up in Geraldton for a couple of weeks perhaps, throwing our plans into disarray. Thank heavens Steve had the part and the van hadn’t been seriously damaged.
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