Merredin

12-13 October, 2012

As we travelled south, we felt we were leaving quiet, remote country and going into the busy world of the wheat belt, an enormous area with each little town having big silos and lots of activity with harvest going on.

At Meckering there was information about an earthquake that happened in 1968. It reached 6.9 on the Richter scale, the biggest that has occurred in Australia. It damaged or destroyed nearly every building, holes 2m deep opened up, ground was pushed up 1.5m in places, and
rail lines were buckled

The pipeline below was first constructed in the early 1900's to take water from Perth to Kalgoorlie...530km...and goes through Merredin. (S & S, remember we read all about it when we were in Kalgoorlie.)

 

 

Before the pipeline was built, the water needed for steam trains was collected from run-off from a huge granite rock in Merredin.....town water also was supplied from this source.

 

 

This water supply was also a factor when Merredin was chosen as the site for the Australian General Army Hospital during WWII. All the personnel, tents and buildings were relocated there from Palestine! and at one time it had over 600 patients. There are extensive ruins in the bushland around the rock.

Later it was relocated again - this time to New Guinea!....made us wonder if Nackie might have worked in it there, as he was in the Field Ambulance in New Guinea.

 

On the rock, we saw a flash of movement, and it was a Ringed Dragon...(Ta-Ta lizard). It runs extremely fast on its back legs then stops and 'waves' its front leg..hence the name. Its camouflage was extraordinary.

 

 

 

A walk in the bushland had a really interesting interpretive board about little smooth cone shaped depressions that can be seen in the sand.

 

 

They are built by Antlion larvae...(if you are interested, Google it ...its amazing) If an ant walks into the trap, the antlion seizes it and sucks it dry.

 

Quandong fruits are bright red now

 

 

These yellow flowers (unknown) are ready for pollination, and the ones that have turned red are already pollinated.

 

 

We learned at Western Flora that an insect's vision uses the ultra-violet spectrum, and yellow shows very bright, advertising the flower's nectar, but red is not visible...a strategy to increase percentage of successful pollination.

 

Isn't nature just amazing?!