12/9/18 Wildflowers

12/09/18 Overcast and cool as I rode north from Perth into gradually reducing traffic, with a few long sections of roadworks.  Easy pleasant riding, feeling good.
My music was still on random.  Perhaps the saddest music I have recorded, came up, Adagio for Strings.  A beautiful piece that nearly brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it.  It fitted right in.  I reckon it lowered my blood pressure a few percent.  (Doesn't always have to be Pink Floyd.)

Again I was happy to be riding a powerful bike, able to pass semis easily.  A small car was travelling near the speed limit (110), but when it passed a semi in a passing lane, it slowed to near 95 as it lumbered up a hill, which blocked another car, which blocked me from passing.  I could have aggressively threaded my way through, but I don't do that.  Eventually I passed the semi and both cars, once past double lines.  Hills don't bother my steed!
The cruise control kept me legal.  Just as well.  Dunno if it was deliberate, but a police car passed, idling behind another car, so hidden from my view.  I was sitting on the limit.  I had my legs resting on my engine bars for a position change at the time, which is illegal.  But the cops didn't turn round to book me, so all well.  Bet they would have if I'd been speeding.

At Dalwallinu I had a pastie & coffee, and chatted to a grey nomad who said he'd seen lots of wreath flowers near Perenjori, which I thought he said was 10km north.  The friendly lady in the info centre said the same thing, but its 110km north.  Evidently the local flowers were small and immature.
So on I went, north.  The skies gradually cleared, the sun came out, the colours brightened, as I left "The Wheatbelt Shire".  It sure is.  Huge tracts of green wheatfields, and ginormous silos and grain stores.  Come to think of it, plenty of big silos since past the Nullarbor.  Easy to see what the major enterprise is here, along with bright yellow fields of canola.

I had to stop and take some shots. These are numbered, so if a knowledgeable person tells me what they are, I can put in their names.

1. Yellow.

 

2. Canola as far as the eye can see.  The picture doesn't do the panorama justice. 

3. Yellow daisy-like flowers in bushes.  Very common.

 

 4. Yellow flowers.

 5. Yellow and orange.

 6. Golden.

 7. Purple bottlebrushes.  (Hakea)

 8. Yellow.  (Hibbertia)

 9. White shrub flowers.

 10. A lone flower.  These usually occur in great spectacular clumps. (Dampiera?)

I ended up with a small ensuite cabin at the Perenjori caravan park.  (Too lazy to pitch a tent.)  Expensive, but free WiFi and laundry.  Snack tea, washed down with a cup of port..

Tomorrow I go looking for wildflowers.  I'd planned to go on to Green Head, but by staying here and delaying that a night, I missed the last "cheap" room, so I'm going straight to Geraldton tomorrow.  Might go via Green Head for a look.

13/09/18 Very leisurely start after a lovely hot shower.  Didn't get away til 10.
Rode out to the location for wreath flowers told me by the information centre lady.  When I got close, it was signposted!

They really didn't want people driving past the carpark here.

Walking behind the bike, MMBear and I found our first ever wreath flowers
(lechenaultia macrantha).  11

 12 Here is a single from the top.

 13 And oblique.

14 Thinking that was a pretty miserable showing, I walked around and found a whole patch of them.

15

Then I rode on toward Morowa, not really knowing where I was going, but happy to get lost.  The day was fine, the displays on the sides of the road were occasional flashes of colour.  But the huge fields were monocultures of wheat or canola. So when I saw a sign to a reserve, I had to look.  The road into Bowgada Nature Reserve was intially rough bitumen, turning to hard packed dirt.

This pic shows the typical carpet of flowers stretching away from the road (behind a handsome bike).  In stopping to take this, I almost sunk the sidestand into soft dirt on the edge.  Whoops.  Just managed to save it from falling over, and found hard stuff to park it.  -It's not as if there was any traffic passing that I'd obstruct.

Definitely in wildflower territory now.  Lots of colour on the sides of roads.  And the flies are very friendly now -since Perenjori at least.  Fortunately I have my special Coober Pedy cream with me, which helps to keep them away.  (All natural ingredients, and doesn't smell too bad.  Just a few dabs in strategic places does the trick.)

Morowa looked a bit dead, so I had lunch at Mingenew (pastie & muesli yoghurt).  Like all the towns, grey nomads galore.
From there I rode into Dongara for a peek.
Where the river meets the sea. 

At Port Denison, I took my first ever stitched photo on my phone, of the beach and marina.  Its almost 270degrees wide.  I think what it actually does is just record video, but make out it's a JPG.  If you view it as a photo it's a jpg, but it can also be viewed on the phone as video.  Here it is reduced in size.

Real holiday area, is Port Denison near the beach.

From there I rode to Geraldton, tootled around a bit, picked up info and maps etc from the information centre, and found my digs, a backpacker place run by the aunt of the lass whose farewell party I went to in Perth.  (Seems ages ago.)
She gave me a 'double' room at a good price.  Since it was cheap, and I'd missed some wildflower areas on my way here, so would have to backtrack, I booked for three nights.  Could even extend it.   This is my first ever backpacker accommodation.  There sure are a lot of rules and regulations that you don't get in motels or cabins!

After a Thai meal (next door) I wandered around looking for a watering hole.  Very quiet on the streets!  Found a pub with a rooftop bar, for a pint of Furphy ale.  Here is the view toward the sea.

Then a bit of Ulysses website fiddling, blogging, and bed.  The accommodation's free WiFi is working pretty well.

Footnotes:
Travelling solo feels pretty good.  No second guessing what the other person wants to do; doesn't matter if I'm fast or slow at something; can travel at whatever speed I want (surprisingly, I'm taking it slow); can ride in a dream without needing to keep an eye on another rider; no competition for facilities, don't have to worry about my snoring...  The downsides are higher accommodation expense; not being able to share experiences with someone; and no nearby rider in case of a mishap.  Usually Michele is on the back.  Despite the aforesaid, I do miss having her there (a bit).
It felt strange tonight having tea by myself, then a beer by myself.

I'm getting more comfortable on the bike with time.  It is running great, and I'm glad I upgraded to the latest model.  Though, fully loaded it's clumsy when standing still or moving slowly.  Amazing how lithe it feels when I take the luggage off for a sightseeing run.  Its a great uncomplaining beast of burden.  :)

14/09/18 Slow start with a nice shower and breakfast talking to a German hitch-hiker who needs work, so he's heading south, even though he came from there.
Walked around Geraldton.  Tried a few quite good second-hand book shops.  Fortunately they didn't have books of authors I collect which I didnt already have.  -I really don't need more gear to carry.  Though I did pick up a small phone-tripod thingie from Hardly Normal.  Rubber-banding my phone to the tripod torch Don gave me, is too cumbersome.  (Though I might rubber-band this new thing to the torch, to get better legs.)  Sometimes I want to be in the shot!

Visited a council art gallery which had a whole lot of objects made from "found items" -basically junk from a guy's shed.  Just goes to show, one shouldn't throw anything out.  Lunch was fish 'n chips in a foam box.  Dearer and not as good as the meal John & I had at Ceduna on a real plate with real cutlery.  This seems to be a touristy place, but somewhat run down.  The local "war memorial" is a plinth, an old tank and an old cannon, both rusting to bits in a forlorn bit of park next to an RSL which doesn't even serve meals.  The town looks a bit unloved in places, progressive in others.

This backpackers has a pod coffee machine.  So instead of buying a coffee out, I bought a couple of packets (Caffitaly) at Woolies, came back and made myself a coffee.  The Woolies choc chip biscuits I bought don't taste as good as I remember.

Time for some drone practice.  The back yard is a decent size, so I had a play.

Outside the back fence, looking at the beach area.  The foreshore is quite nice, with play equipment, toilets etc.

One side of the back yard.

The other side of the back yard and extra toilets in the foreground.  That's my bike to the right of them.

Looking at the backpackers I'm in.  All the bedrooms are upstairs.  Under the trees and elevated room are outside tables.  The shared kitchen is behind them.
There are lounges with big TVs, and free WiFi, which is very fast when the kids aren't watching streamed video or some such.
The building on the right is the Thai place where I had tea last night.  Acceptable, not brilliant.  (What is a Thai place doing serving up chow mein?)

So that's stills from the drone.  It has a 12Mpixel sensor.  Seems pretty good.
I'll try video, but I keep stuffing up recording.  I seem to turn it off when I want it on, and record lots of me manhandling the drone before or after flight.  Grrrr.

This is the front of the backpackers, in the other street.
The entrance is the white door, between the Thai restaurant and a decent second-hand bookshop (whose lady owner rides a MotoGuzzi).  My favourite places on each side.  Karma or what?

At 5.30, it was live music in the street just across the road, in front of a wine & food bar.  These kids were pretty good.  I got there just as they were playing Rider on the Storm.  After that it was a Sting song.  Since I was enjoying it, I felt obliged to buy a drink.  A glass of White Rabbit dark ale seemed appropriate.
I left when they started playing less attractive (to me) music.

It was pretty gusty.  I wondered how my drone would hold up to it, so I took it down the foreshore for a fly.  It did very well against the wind!

Its getting a bit dark, but this is the play area across the road from the backpackers.  I flew it toward the beach, again it held up well.  I took some video, but it ended up being 1.4GB, for not much time.  I seem to recall that one feature of the bigger DJI drones is that they do a better job of compressing video on the fly.  I might have to set it to lower quality.

Tea is canned Heinz stuff and a banana.  This is a backpackers.  People eat cheap here.  :)