We left Geraldton early on Thursday morning and took our time traveling back to Perth. We had the whole day available, so we took our time and stopped frequently to admire some of the wildflowers that were growing by the roadside.
We are clearly far too early for the magnificent rush of flowers that cover this entire area in a blaze of colour in spring, but we were able to see many isolated specimens of early examples of wild flowers. I don’t know why it has happened, but Western Australia just got lucky with hundreds of varieties of plants that flower extensively.
Among these is the ‘Grass Tree’ or Xanthorrhoea as it is known botanically. This plant was made famous in the stories about ‘Grug’ by Ted Prior which our kids loved when they were little. There are now over thirty titles in the series and our grand-daughter, Audrey, also loves them. Her favorite is the one in which Grug goes to sleep under a blanket which is too short to cover his toes, and he wakes up with cold feet. She makes sure that when she goes to sleep, that she doesn’t have ‘Grug Toes’.
Today, we spent some time looking around different parts of Perth – South Perth with it’s exceptional views across the Swan River, Fremantle with its maritime museum and Little Creatures Brewery and finally Cottleslowe with its surf beach fronting the Indian Ocean.
