Floral gems at Hi Vallee

Sheep farmers, Don and Joy Williams of Hi Vallee farm off Tootbardie Road, Warradarge took us on a Cook’s tour of a special piece of virgin scrub on their farm.

This 400ha of sand plain breakaway country features a diverse range of native flora.

The Warradarge visit bought back memories to me of the early 60s, when there was a big windmill next to the roadhouse adjacent to the Coorow-Green Head road.

This mill had a 9m wheel and draw plunger pump and when I was working with the district water supply we serviced that mill.

It has since been shifted down next to the roadhouse near the Moore River.

The Warradarge Roadhouse was the northern point of the conditional purchase land allocations in 1966 that saw the clearing of thousands of acres of sand plain country to the south.

Further allocations to the north took place the next year.

Don and Joy are among the few original folk who were allocated land then and have remained on their property for the past 50 years.

John and Judy Brown were another couple who featured in this column a few weeks ago.

These farmers are having a re-union on the October 8. For details call Don on 9652 3035.

Not far from Don and Joy’s farm is the Lesueur National Park, which has a huge range of unique Mid West wildflowers.

Don explained how he got started with the native flora.

“There was a mining company in the area at the time and they were exploring what is now Mt Lesueur National Park,” he said.

“It wasn’t gazetted then and the farmers who had taken up land around it were concerned about losing it to mining.

“I started taking people through the park in the early days to get them to appreciate the value of the place.

“Then, once the mining company left and the park was created, people still wanted to tour through it. It was mainly school groups back then, we took about 1500 school children through there, working with the Apex club.

“We then gradually moved over to straight-out wildflower tours for adults and a few bus companies.

“It then became small groups of two to a dozen people and that’s pretty much how it is today. They can camp here and enjoy the farm life as well as the wildflowers.”

Don explained that his small piece of privately owned bush contains six declared rare flora and 30 priority species.

We spotted a lot of plants including Verticodia nobilis, which has yellow flowers that turn pink when they are fertilised.

Also the Caladenia lorea or blushing spider orchid, a Darwinia speciose (which traps its fertilised seed) and Kingia Australis, which looks a bit like a grass tree but isn’t.

The Lechenaultia biloba, or blue Lechenaultia, has an almost indescribably blue flower.

One species just beginning to flower was Lechenaultia hirsute or hairy Leschenaultia which is a low-profile plant with a red flower.

Some 520 different plant species in 56 families have been identified for this property.

The Friend of Geraldton Gardens Group, or FroGGs Inc, are actively engaged in working towards creating a botanical garden of Mid West flora inside the CBD of the City of Greater Geraldton.

They hope to bring home to the 40,000 people that live in Geraldton, a sample of our amazing heritage of world’s rare flora. It grows here, right under our noses and much of it is threatened by human activity. FroGGs care for a row of wicking baskets in Marine Terrace, in the west end, where you can look at some of this flora.

Or you can call up Don or Joy on 96 52 3035 and get an in-depth appraisal of this floral bounty at the couple’s Hi Vallee farm.

This column will be my last in a series about wildflowers, tours and information about our flora in Geraldton and its districts. But do keep the interest up and speak out to protect this incredibly remarkable asset of ours.