Pics: Poronurup flower, Windrush WineryLittle wind and clearing. The boys set off at 6:30 for Two Peoples and I stayed in bed which felt ridiculously luxurious! Up at eight, Bob and Mark returned at nine, and we had bacon and fried eggs and set off at 10 for Porongurup National Park about 25 miles north of Albany.
When we drove up into the small mountains of the park we could see the Stirling Range about another 25 miles to the north of us. Although the parks are close together, the flora is very different. The Porongurups receive much more rain than the Stirlings and have beautiful, very tall and straight Karri eucalyptus. The whole park had burned over 18 months before, but the trees are very fire resistant and are recovering nicely. The smaller plants look pretty weedy , although we saw some pretty flowers but we didn’t see any of the many orchids that are supposed to grow there, but maybe the fire has something to do with that. Lots of bird songs and we saw several Western Rosellas, orange-red parrots with yellow faces and green backs.
We drove on to the town of Mt. Baker and asked someone for a restaurant recommendation and she suggested Windrush Winery, down a long dirt road. We finally found vines growing and turned into the winery and lovely modern tasting room and café. We were greeted by David the owner and tasted four very good and inexpensive wines (USD 13-14) and then went into the café where his wife Caroline served us a very good lunch of Turkish bread with dips, stuffed mushrooms for me, lamb kabobs for Mark and chicken salad for RR.
After our leisurely lunch we drove back to Albany and birded a marshy area for an hour or two finally returning home for toasted cheese sandwiches and bed.
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