So next day where to go? Well first off it was back into town, talked to the same volunteers (Greg and Alfreda) who loved hearing the feedback on the Mt Matilda walk heritage walk, there were two other wildflower walks nearby, (other than the Christmas Rock walk) and they were arguing over over which was better the Wongan wildflower walk or the Gathercol reserve walk. Well us with our logical thinking brain decided that what the heck why don’t we do both? And if time permits why not throw in the old favourite Christmas rock walk to boot.

The Wongan Wildflower Walk is right on the edge of town alongside the water corp buildings, where it looked like an old caravan park might have been. All up its about 1km in length and follows a rough figure 8 pattern.

The walk is easy along graded sandy firebreaks, some of the wildflowers we saw are below

After a rest and a bit of a drink we then took off and headed out of town to the Gathercole Reserve, a longer drive and a longer walk through much more varied scenery, take a drink and defnitiely take your camera. Its further from town so pack a bit of a lunch and make a day of it. The place is fairly unique with a little bit of history, apparently there are some ruins of an old cottage but we didn’t find them. What we did find on the grade 2-3 walk was lots and lots of dragons and ta ta lizards, the dragons were cute but very camera shy, the slightest hint of you wanting to take their photo and they were off, skittering across the rocks and running into tiny little cracks under rock slabs from which they refused to come out.

The 3km walk takes a couple of hours, crossing granoite outcrops, and through the fringing woodlands that make a nice shady reprieve from the sun. You could spend more time exploring around the wind and rain sculpted rocks which is a bit of an eerie place and imagining what ot would have been like living here so many years ago.

So as for which of the two walks is better? Well realistically it depoends on what you want. The wildflowers are different at both, the Wongan walk is simpler, the Gathercole reserve walk is longer but has more different terrain as it goes around and over granite outcrops, As just a walk (and not considering the wildflowers at all) then I personally prefer the Gathercole reserve, it has varied scenery, weirdly sculptured rocks and don;t forget that there be Dragons, lots of dragons…. and ta ta lizards, scurrying about and running into the tiniest cracks in the flat rocks, and lots of floral carpets courtesy of the Immortelles.

Finishing that walk and pausing for a brief bite to eat, we dropped back into the visitors centre to let them know what we thought and after an hour chatting we ended up back out the lake again for the night Greg and Alfreda (the visitor centre hosts) turned up and we chatted a bit more until the cold wind whipping of the water drove them home and us inside, a quick tea and into bed.

So now its Monday, the usual get up and breakfast, with the wind having settled overnight the lake was calm again. An earlier start today, On the road by 8am emptied the toot cassette at the dump point at the visitor centre, went to fill up, couldn’t find the hex key to open the water tank flap!, so pulled the van apart looking for it and ended up with the tiniest of spanners to turn it to open. Then having finally filled up the tank and emptied our grey water and black water tanks we headed off towards Ballidu.

On the way we detoured in to the Reynoldson reserve not far from Wongan Hills, Wow the colours of the feather flowers were so vivid and I don’t think they were yet in full bloom, another week would be great, just in time for the Wongan Hills’  Reynoldson Reserve festival highlighting the flowers, So if you are up this way in late October make sure to check this place out, other sites may be lacking in wildflowers but by then this one would be in full swing.

So spent an hour and a bit in there, then took the Ballidu to Bindi-Bindi road and then the Miling Moora road, both quite pretty and quiet roads so you can sit back relax while someone else does the driving and let the stress and worries just melt away.