Way Away in WA 2023 – Day 42 – Kwongan in National Parks

We returned to Lesueur National Park and did the road loop through the park and the Gairdner Trail that circles a long rocky hill with some different species of wildflowers.

Kingia in the morning light

The Northern Queen of Sheba Orchid (Thelymitra pulcherrima) is listed on WA’s Declared Rare and Priority Flora List. We were told about it by another hiker the day before but it wasn’t open. The petals unfolded before our eyes in the morning sunshine.

This is the most prized orchid to see for enthusiasts in WA.

More wildflowers on the Gairdner Trail (will name at a later date)

The northern part of Lesueur National Park

Cockleshell Gully Road

Coomallo Conservation Park is another kwongan reserve inland from Lesueur.

Cats paw

Donkey orchid

Sundew (Drosers sp.) – an insectivorous plant

Coomallo low area where Carnaby Cockatoos feed (none here today).

But the galahs were there, although one was headless which surprised his mate.

The Twenty-Eight Parrot (race of Ringneck Parrot) with the small red patch behind the beak.

Eucalyptus caesia in a park at Badgingarra township. It does not grow locally but further east in crevices at the base of granite outcrops in scattered inland areas of the Mallee and Wheatbelt.

One of the Badgingarra Roadhouse peacocks.

Red Pokers (Hakea bucculenta) also in town grows between Geraldton and Shark Bay.

Vern Westbrook Nature Reserve orchids

Badgingarra National Park – heath dominates the park on higher kwongan. Flora in this area includes the yellow and black kangaroo paws, two types of grass trees, banksias, smokebush, the rare Badgingarra mallee, the mottlecah (with the largest flower of all the eucalypts) and verticordia.