Victoria Plains wildflowers, down Old Plains Road, a mostly well graded gravel road, about 8ks south of New Norcia and bridging the districts of Bolgart and Calingiri. Are we there yet? The sun was shining, there was a slight breeze, the vines in the Valley were green, the paddocks too, crops looked healthy, the yellow of the canola almost gone, dams were almost full – a great day to be trundling through the countryside in search of wildflowers. Lots of light and dark blue leschenaultia along the highway verges and down Old Plains Road too. There were many patches of colourful ‘gardens’ along the way, and when we stopped to take a wander around discovered lots of smaller shrubs hidden from view when looking through the bus windows. It’s Wandoo and York Gum country with a varied understorey including golden dryandra, the red/gold/brown of the poison pea flower gastrolobium, pink petrophile, different forms of acacia, pink myrtle (hypocalymma), light and dark leschenaultia, blue damperia too, trigger plants, tiny white everlastings and at our morning tea stop in Rica Erikson Reserve, just by the bus door (and elsewhere too) spider orchids. Arriving in Toodyay about mid-day we eventually settled on the Cola Café (a museum to all things Coca Cola) for lunch. Afterwards we headed to Pelham Reserve at the top of the town to take a couple of short walks to various highlighted sites – our map reading skills need honing, as each path we took ended in a dead end. Nonetheless there was a good view of the town and surrounding countryside from the Drummond Memorial Garden and Lookout (the garden seemed to be missing too!) And so we headed home a little earlier than anticipated after enjoying our traverse of farming country, wildflowers and weeds.
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