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Category: Western Australia

Grand sands (#43 in series: atop East Mount Barren, looking west)

 

Sitting 450 metres ASL, atop Mount Barren at 9:43 am on 21 September 2021, all land within my  westward field of a view – and very much more, well beyond it – was part of Fitzgerald River National Park.

To the west, the nearest coastal town was Bremer Bay, just outside the National Park’s western boundary.

Were I able to fly, Bremer Bay would be 80 kilometres distant from my vantage point.

By road, the distance is nearly twice that – the near-coast road only extends a few kilometres west of East Mount Barren

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Grand sands (#42 in series: atop East Mount Barren, looking east)

Q: what do the mostly-grey, stark rocks atop East Mt Barren have in common with the mostly-white sands that are a feature of so many beaches on Western Australia’s south coast?

A: both are composed almost entirely of the second most abundant mineral in the earth’s crust, namely….

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Messy eaters, in full colour.

 

For residents of West Leederville (in Perth’s inner suburbia) the second day of February 2025 provided yet another nice reminder that Australia’s birds are – collectively – the world’s loudest..and the most intelligent.

Hereabouts, late last Sunday afternoon was something of a “benign riot” for one species: Calyptorhynchus banksii naso – the Forest red-tailed black cockatoo.

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Grand sands (#41 in series: dunes, devouring forest & wetlands)

 

20 kilometres southwest of Pemberton, in southwestern WA’s “Karri country”, the Yeagarup Dunes cover circa 30 square kilometres.

They are the Southern Hemisphere’s largest mobile, land-locked dune system.

The Yeagarup Dunes are currently advancing inland at circa 4 metres per year.

This post’s photos were taken from the top of their “hungry” edge, on 27 October 2016.

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Grand sands (#40 in series: “looking down” on prostrate plants [2 of 2])

 

 

Collectively and individually, members of the genus Banksia are among the world’s more spectacular and surprising flowering plants.

If one accepts the reclassification that brought the 94 Dryandra species into the Banksia fold, the genus has circa 170 members; if one does not, there are 79 named Banksia species.

Either way, all but one species are endemic to Australia.

The overwhelming majority naturally occur only in Western Australia, and most of those have very small ranges, in near-coastal parts of WA’s southwest.

Even by Banksia standards, the six prostratae species are “wondrous strange”.

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Grand sands (#39 in series: “looking down” on prostrate plants [1 of 2])

 

 

 

This chapter’s hero is another of the enormous number of WA-endemic flowering plants that thrive in Cape Arid National Park.

Most “wildflowers” position their actual flowers well clear of the ground.

In Australia’s southwestern corner, however, some of the region’s plants are “prostrate” – their flowers may sit on the sand, literally.

If you look carefully at the featured image you will notice that the nearer, otherwise-strikingly-red flowers are sand-flecked.

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Grand sands (#38 in series: “looking down” from/at Belinup Hill, Cape Arid N.P.)

Yes, the beach really is that white, and the ocean shallows’ shades of blue are also “true”.

(the various blues’ intensity is in large part thanks to the sand’s whiteness, acting in concert with the sun, high in a clear sky)

The featured image looks down (and east, over Yokinup Bay, to Mt Arid) from Belinup Hill in Cape Arid National Park; visible, “naked” sand occupies a small portion of the photo, but millions of tons of “hidden” sand are invisibly-present through most of its field of view.

Southern WA has some of the world’s poorest soils, but what grows in and “hides” those very sands is (arguably) “our” planet’s greatest natural wildflower “show”.

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Australia Day in Mandurah (2 of 2: sans flags, mostly)

 

This post’s featured image shows two young Australians, having a lovely time on Australia Day.

It is reasonable to assume that they had zero awareness of – let alone ardent opinions about – the “rights” and “wrongs” of national flags, what we “should” or “should not” celebrate on Australia Day, and “appropriate” v “inappropriate” dates.

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