Watheroo
So it looks like John is having a two part Father’s day this year and part one was a day’s outing to Watheroo and surrounding areas.
Armed with what looks like a hand drawn map of Watheroo given to us 6 years ago, by we can’t remember who, we set out for a day of discovery. We, this time around included Jamie and Naomi.
Land in the area was settled by James Oliver in 1851, the area was surveyed in 1871 and the name Watheroo was charted for the first time. Watheroo is a thriving farming Wheatbelt town, farming livestock and grain. The town was an original station on the Midland Railway Company railway line to Walkaway. The townsite was gazetted in 1907
Watheroo National Park is a national park 187 km north of Perth. It contains Jingemia Cave.
The park is mostly composed of sand plain country which supports populations of heath, Mallee and Banksia and a large number of wildflowers. Eucalypt stands can be found to the western end of the park. other species include the spinifex, wandoo and yorm gum. Some of the wildflowers found within the park include Kwongan, the Bush Cauliflower and the Scarlet featherflower.
The name of the park comes from the Indigenous Australian name of a nearby spring.
My alarm rang at 4:45 am, and we wasted no time to get out of bed. By my calculations, Watheroo was 2 and half hours away. We thought to leave by 5:30, and around that time we took off.

We were in the Bindoon area, so we stopped in to the Bindoon Bakehaus. Naomi and Jamie had sensible breakfast. John and I not so much.
Maybe I am making too much fuss over the fog, but it’s such a rare thing in Perth. I know where I come from, it’s not so unusual. I enjoyed seeing the countryside with the fog.
While we were stopped there. A butcherbird sang for us.
As my mom used to say, “That there was worth the price of the ticket.”

Now as excited as we were with our orchid finds, we were very excited when Jamie found the Thorny devil! It was quite patient with us, we each had a turn taking photos!

In another location we got to see a cluster of spider orchids – Caladenia footeana – Crimson Spider Orchid

Based on its long ‘ears’, and our location, this could be a Pterostylis sp. ‘hairy’ – Hairy-stemmed Snail Orchid

The two eagle eyed youngsters in the back seat spotted an echidna crossing the road!
John and I are used to going on these adventures on our own, but it was really nice to have company. I learned it means two more sets of eyes to help find things too!
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