Day Three - Monday 22nd April - Wyperfeld National Park Adjusting to the climate and botanical changes!

Well, it would be fair to say that we froze! Apparently, the temperature dropped to MINUS ONE DEGREE, and it was CHILLY! Tonight, we might be putting on a few extra layers of clothing to combat the cold! We’ve been trying to locate thermals and anything that will help! But the minute the sun comes up it warms quickly and so we’re anticipating 26 degrees later today! Desert temperatures around here. We’re off grid but still have plenty of power thanks to solar panels, the inverter and many pieces of technology which I find completely mystifying. (However Ewan feels that Liz and I should be masters of technology and takes great pleasure in giving us descriptions about every switch and light and power source and charging point and…….enough!) No packing up today so we headed for Patchewollock to negotiate about dog kennels: definitely no phone coverage at Wyperfeld so it was off to the closest town. We’re hoping to do some walking trails around the National Park. It’s certainly easy to identify when you’re in the Park as everywhere else for hundreds of kilometres is just vast acres of wheatfields. At this time of the year it’s just stubble. Every now and then you come across a station with their own silos for storing grain, which explains why the silos used for the Silo Art are no longer in use. And did I say the land was FLAT? Barely a hill in sight! Update: After finalising the care of Snoopy for the next few weeks we set off in just the car, leaving the caravan parked at Casuarina Camping Ground in the north of the Wyperfeld National Park. (For those interested Snoopy is having a lovely holiday at Treetop Kennels in Sunbury) We headed for Wonga Camping Ground to the south purchasing excellent salad rolls and coffee scrolls at the Bow Bakery in Hopetoun. Given the disaster with the coffee purchased elsewhere in Hopetoun the day before, we didn’t buy any. It seems that there are only two sizes of cups in Hopetoun - large and extremely large - so you can barely taste the coffee at all. Mind you the locals seem to love it! You do meet some interesting characters when you travel. In Hopetoun we came across this delightful lady with a pimped-up wheelchair: stickers provided by her grandchildren!

After more acres of wheat stubble, we arrived at the campground and worked out which walking trail to use. We chose the Discovery Track and finished it in less than two hours despite lots of coughing and puffing and panting from Liz and I as neither of us is completely healthy! There were storyboards, every few metres it seemed, with information about plants and animals. We are now officially experts on native pines and there are many around here. We can differentiate between shrub native pines, slender native pines, standard native pines, buloke pines etc etc. Ask us any time you want to know!!

While the storyboards are a great idea 90% of them showed photos of beautiful flowers which we couldn’t see, followed by the statement “flowers in late winter and early spring” which is very annoying when we are in autumn. However, we did mange to find a few flowers and a very odd bush fruit……without a description of course!

The other mystery is that the maps contain a number of Lakes, none of which have water at all, and may not have had water since the inland sea many moons ago! To be fair we did find one patch of mud! But then the big excitement of the day! We decided to go home via a 4WD track for 40 kilometres. We did read the warnings about sand and difficult terrain, but Liz and I had absolute confidence that Ewan and the Pajero could get us through. It was a fairly hairy experience: lots of hills, corrugations and huge drifts of sand which Ewan skillfully managed until…… We all went OH! when we saw a huge steep hill of deep sand before us. After each attempt Ewan changed the settings on the car (too technical for me!) but we kept looking as if we may get bogged. So we decided to retreat with dignity! It appeared that many others had done the same as there was a well-used space suitable for U-turns on the side of the track! So, we had achieved 20 kms of the 40 km track but had to turn back and go the long way, which made it a VERY long way! Fortunately, there was a stunning sunset to light our way so all was not lost! We arrived back at the caravan to find one of my thongs and our rubbish bin missing. A bit of wandering around located them although an animal had found my thong and chewed it! A pity! Tonight, we have multiple layers of thermals, jumpers, socks to contend with the cold so let’s hope we stay warm!! Your optimistic correspondent Dianne