Dryandra NP (Narrogin) 29 December 2006

Travelled onto a slightly bigger town, Narrogin, with a cool streetscape of lovely green trees and a few bigger shops. Felt like a small Mudgee like town! The railway passes through the town and has all the old infrastructure of a much busier time. As we pass through all these towns with the old railway infrastructure we noted we have never seen a train since north of Perth! We stop and look at all crossings though! We spent a few hours under the big pine trees by the old railway in town. We booked a nocturnal tour in Dryandra Woodland, so we left late in the afternoon and settled in the depth of the old Mallet trees. These woodlands were settled around 1920 by forestry workers to plant Mallet forests for collection of the bark that was used worldwide for tannin for dying leather, saddles etc. (One of the true colours of our past!) The Mallet is a native tree but not from this area. When the industry collapsed (as so many of the old industries did) it was transformed to become a National Park. With other adjoining land it is now 28,000hectares. We had to drive deeper into the woodland to the 26 hectare enclosure where endangered species from the region are protected from feral predators (cats and foxes) and new populations supported to re-populate the outer areas. We sat in the moonlight waiting in different locations for the routine arrival of all sorts of creatures. We were rewarded with close encounters with Wurrup (Rufous Hare Wallaby), Boodie (bettong), Marl (bandicoot) and a glimpse of a bilby! They came very close but were nervous and flinched at the wind in the trees, the shriek of a settling bird and, unfortunately, the other few visitors who coughed, sneezed, whimpered, talked and shuffled in all the wrong places! We drove 10km back to Jimmy in a magic of reflection amidst the closely growing white gums. We settled in and were awoken throughout the night by possums on the roof. On observation they looked down calmly from our roof, and happily climbed up and down our ladder on the back of the truck. It went on all night as you could mostly hear the noises climbing the ladder! On one occasion we opened a hatch to scare them off but one possum just looked in iniquitously without fear!