Narrogin

Narrogin is a town of some 4,500 souls in Western Australia's southern wheatbelt. In common with the rest of southern WA it has endured the driest year on record (in stark contrast to the floods happening in eastern Australia) so the countryside around is brown, dry and dusty. Like much of the rest of wheat country throughout Australia, there are numerous granite outcrops in the area, we spent a leisurely half day driving around nearby townships and climbing various rock outcrops.

Opposite the caravan park in Narrogin itself there is a bush reserve called Foxes Lair with several walking trails. Our exploration of this yesterday was abruptly curtailed when John went off trail slightly for a comfort stop and disturbed a swarm of bees, they gave him half a dozen nasty stings before he was able to outrun them. Several of the stings are still red and swollen today, if things don't improve in the next day or two he may have to seek professional medical assistance. Before our walk was interrupted we came across the tree shown in the photo at right - it has doggedly overcome its misfortune at germinating underneath a rock!

The highlight of our visit here has undoubtedly been the nature reserve called Dryandra Woodland, about 30km north of Narrogin. We spent a full day at the woodland, doing multiple walks through the dry scrub, including an interesting walk around the traces of a long gone railway line. We also did over 50km of drive trails, scattered not just with numerous information panels but also radio information stops - places with hidden FM transmitters where you not only get to hear some of the history but also sounds of the bush such as bird and animal noises. A couple of evenings ago we returned to Dryandra to do a night tour at Barna Mia, the animal sanctuary hidden in the heart of the reserve. Here they are breeding small marsupials such as bilbies (of Easter chocolate fame), boodies (burrowing bettongs) and rufous hare-wallabies to enable their release back into the wild in areas where populations have been killed by feral foxes and cats. After watching a video on the history of the sanctuary and animals within, the guide took us out by torchlight to view these nocturnal animals in their natural habitat. He cheats somewhat as he puts out food for them, but it was still fabulous to see these shy (and some not so shy) wild animals scurrying around, squabbling and darting almost under our feet. We were strictly warned not to try and touch them no matter how close they come, as a bite could leave you sick for months, but it is hard to resist trying to stroke the little cuties when they are so close. With only 4 of us on the tour it was a fabulous nature experience, the only downside being that we were unable to take any photographs as the flash could harm their eyes.

Of course, as always we did the history walk around town, plus here they have a 'centenary pathway', which was laid out to celebrate Narrogin's centenary in 1991. There are 100 stone tiles, each depicting one or more events in the town's history. The one that amazed us was the one representing 1951, when apparently Narrogin hosted the Australian Grand Prix!