Wildflower Way: Xanippe to Woolya

After a beautiful quiet night in Xanippe I quickly detoured south 20 minutes to Petrudor Rocks. It it yet another nature preserve in the heart of wheat country. The rock outcrops had more blue fairy orchids, little laughing leek orchids, sundews, and other flowers. Under the blue sky, caressed by the cool breeze, I hiked a bit and sat drawing orchids and enjoying the most beautiful day. In the afternoon I continued north stopping off at small nature reserves every 40 minutes or so. Its such a lovely way to road trip, matching the time driving with the time spent walking around. Granted, you don't make swift progress, but I'm not in a huge hurry. I saw flowers, butterflies, blue tongued lizards, and lots of lovely wildlife as I cruised along. 

Speaking of Wildflower way, I think Australia does a really good job of promoting their back country highways/roads (especially in WA). In the States people just call the highway by the number, for a country with a big road trip culture, we don't really promote it that much. Australia has so many road trips that are promoted or highways named to promote tourism. Wildflower way (a set loop with a bunch of recommended towns and stops), the Great Ocean Road, the Great Northern Highway, etc. It's so much better than our highways which are often named after politicians, which nobody uses, and then just calls it by the highway number.

Driving Wildflower way a few weeks before peak season was really lovely. Every night along the trip I stayed in nature preserves where I camped for free. There was nobody else around and the skies were dark and quiet except the occasional road train (a road train is a semi-truck usually with 2-3 cars) passing far in the distance. It was a really lovely path. I'm likely to return along another portion of the wildflower way when I head back south. It will be interesting to see how it changes in a few weeks when the flowers really bloom.

Every couple hours on my drive I come across a small farm town. The towns have a couple dozen houses, a tourist info center or signs for where to see wildflowers, a bakery, a post office, a gas station, and occasionally, a small grocery store. It's interesting seeing these small towns in comparison to similar towns in the states. For one, its refreshing to not see Trump signs every 5 minutes, which have been there since 2015. Also, most small country towns in the States having this feeling of being very run down. Lots of garbage in yards, many dilapidated houses in disrepair, they rarely feel like a place you want to stop, but here they are different. Of course they aren't super modern or anything, but even those that seem like they have lost population or income over time don't seem to have the same sense of melancholy. Many have caravan parks for visiting tourists and a visitor center, or at least nice signage. I wonder where the funding for the area comes from. There are copious farms, which seem to be mainly wheat and canola, but that isn't something that promotes tourist. I wonder if the Western Australian government helped fund these towns to build up tourist infrastructure, then promote these road trips. Either way, its really interesting and lovely visiting the small towns.

 Driving down the highways of northwestern Australia are beautiful rolling hills. The canola fields are currently in bloom and as I drive I will be delighted by a sea of yellow flowers. Wildflowers are also abundant on the road as I go. As I travel north the colors of the flowers change. In the more southern portion of the drive the flowers along the road were primarily pink everlasting. As I moved north the flowers changed to yellow everlasting and in the far north are a pale yellow flower (I'm unsure what it is) and a dark purple almost blue firebush.