1 July 2013 - Bunbury Glade Caravan Park, Bunbury, Western Australia

Sunshine again this morning, and the very best day weather wise for weeks, or so it seemed. We set off after breakfast back toward Collie; the place seems to draw us as a moth to a flame, and I would suggest that if a traveller were not set on heading south along the coast, Collie would back a perfect base from which to explore the area we are currently enjoying so much.

As we drove north, then east, toward Collie, on the same excellent road travelled several days ago, we delighted in the rural scenery, this time clear of rain mist and all the better for it. It came as a surprise to see how much of the rolling farmland had been planted out in eucalypt plantation, the extent of which I had not noticed on our previous trip.

We turned down into the Wellington National Park, then down River Road before reaching the dam, to Honeymoon Pool, so named because the campers encountered when the Volunteer Defence Corps arrived to set up their own camp in the early 1940s were “honeymooners”, when the word actually meant something.

It was interesting to learn that from May 1943 and for the duration of World War II into 1945, a Jungle Warfare Training School was based at Wellington Dam. Much of the surrounding forest was used for the training, which included obstacle courses, target shooting, flying foxes, river crossings on ropes and use of explosives. This school prepared nine Australian ground troop Battalions for fighting the Japanese in New Guinea, and no doubt played a big part in chasing the black cockatoos away. It was a delight today to hear the screeching calls of a pair of those magnificent birds high above us from this picnic area.

We had come with the specific intention of undertaking the six kilometre Jabitj Walk Trail along the Collie River through mature forest, granite outcrops, river pools and rapids as far as the dam and back again, a total of twelve kilometres.

Honeymoon Pool

We set off with lunch in the back pack, hoping to see the wildlife listed on the boards at the Pool: the twenty-eight parrot, emu and currawong, pied cormorants, darters and Pacific black ducks, the red-eared fire tails and splendid fairy wrens, race-horse goannas, tiger snakes, western ringtail and brush tail possums, chuditches, quenda and woylies. And special attention was given to the “spectacular looking water rat, with dense, dark fur and a gold belly”. All I can say is that I am glad I did not see these rats, spectacular or otherwise. However it would have been nice to have seen more wildlife than we did which was pretty much zilch, just a darter and a duck. I think you would have to set up camp at Honeymoon Pool, and sit out under the dark trees, well doused in insect repellent, and quietly watch for these wonderful creatures, minus the rats, to emerge from the brush.

When we returned to camp and were standing about enjoying hot coffee, having left the thermos in the vehicle, we were entertained by an unseen bird high in a nearby marri tree, gnawing on the tree’s nuts and dropping them down onto the park shelter roof. Try as we may, we could not see the perpetrator. Or perhaps it was a possum defying the rules of nocturnal behaviour? We had seen the remnants of these nuts all along the route, and thought the culprit might have been a black cockatoo, the nuts being one of their favourite things.

We did so enjoy our walk, the first part of relatively easy grade along under massive marri and jarrah trees, through maiden hair ferns, swamp peppermint and rushes, beside the quiet pools of the Collie River, and then it became a little more challenging as we advanced further upstream where the river was more often than not rushing through rapids over platforms of great granite rocks. The trail veered away from the river at times and went over steeper sections, and there I decided those that construct walking tracks are of a sadistic bent. Walking upriver you are not surprised to find yourself walking uphill, but then when you find a downhill section immediately after, you ask yourself, “Why?”

Even as we made our way back, the foliage was still quite wet; brown leaves glistening in the sun looked like shards of brown glass, cobwebs sparkled in the light and the ground under foot required attention to avoid slipping.

Below the Wellington Dam

Despite my complain about the seemingly unnecessary undulations, I repeat, it was an excellent walk and we would recommend it, however we did prefer the section of the Bibbulum Track we sampled up at the Harris Dam.

We returned to Bunbury by travelling on south up out of the Collie Valley, and over the ridge and into the Ferguson Valley, then westward on road already travelled back to camp, delighting yet again in the rural landscapes.