Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Pictured above and below: Hakea victoria, known as Royal Hakea.
Arguably, it has the most spectacularly variegated leaves of any plant on earth; the individuals in this post are by no means unusually splendid examples.
Fitzgerald River National Park is its stronghold, and all naturally occurring Royal Hakeas are within easy driving distance of “the Fitz”.
Most photos in this post were taken on a morning ascent of East Mount Barren on 21 September 2021.
One CommentThe featured image has not been photoshopped; it is not a composite of monochrome and full colour.
Such juxtapositions of the “drab/dark/subdued/almost monochrome” with the “brilliantlly/exquisitely/flamboyantly colourful” are commonplace in southwestern Australia.
Here, some of the world’s poorest soils are in fact the key to an astonishing, highly diverse array of endemic flora.
In global terms, the relevant “mountain” is in fact a relatively modest hill, rising 311 metres above the nearby ocean.
However, if you love wildflowers, this hill has few peers, anywhere…
2 CommentsThis post enables you to see how West Beach sits within the expansive landscape/seascape of Fitzgerald River National Park’s eastern section.
(the western section is quite different, and equally splendid, but “the Fitz” is huge…so even the view from atop the Hopetoun end’s best vantage point will only give you a view over the park’s eastern section)
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This series’ concluding image was taken at 2.42 pm on 20 September 2021.
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This series’ penultimate image shows the western end of West Beach.
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Today’s image offers a closer look at part of the rock-face which was featured in episode 7 of this sequence.
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Schistosity is a thin layering of the rock produced by metamorphism that permits the rock to be easily split into thin layers or flakes.
(rocks with a high degree of schistosity are commonly known as schists. Typically, they have a “grainy” appearance)
Some schists look quite prosaic.
Others are very beautiful.
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Only a few metres away from the rock in yesterday’s post, this one also exhibits “a high degree of schistosity”, but its appearance is utterly different.
A deal of the “rockscape” on West Beach resembles a hallucinatory version of the Nazi coastal defences which were intended to make Normandy’s beaches “impregnable”.
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Strikingly evident in episodes 5 through 8 of this 10-part sequence is…
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If you stood just a little above West Beach’s high tide line, facing the Southern Ocean, and you then turned around 180 degrees to look at the slope behind the beach…
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