Kookanooka, Morowa

We went to the visitors centre in Morowa this morning and the lady recommended we visit the Morowa Museum, Church of the Holy Cross built by Monsignor Hawes with a tiny Hermitage used as the priest house.
The museum was very interesting and unexpectedly huge. There were 4 main sections to the museum. The museum was an old police station with gaol cells. You began the museum visit at the station building housing army and military themed paraphernalia and the cells were converted into a wedding themed exhibition room and a sitting room like a lounge. The cells were luxuriously lined with Jarrah from floor to ceiling which provided great insulation to the vastly varying temperature through the year.
Another huge shed housed windmills for pumps. Apparently the largest in the southern hemisphere. Following from the windmills are 2 big sheds of farming and household antiquities. We were intrigued that horse carriages had to have licence plates too. Last but not least a warehouse of old tractors. With a very informative guide called Peter to explain some of the tools and exhibits, the visit took nearly 2 hours.
Back to chasing wildflowers. We were told that there were pretty wildflowers at Kookanooka Springs. I relied too much on the GPS, instead of following the map from the visitors centre, I navigated to Kookanooka Dam instead. This meant a long detour to the springs and causing much anxiety as I was now travelling on gravel roads not knowing if it might be boggy.
Thankfully we got the the Kookanooka Springs safely and were rewarded with quite a few varieties of wildflowers and orchids.
We headed back to the accommodation for a late lunch and then a short 4km walk in the nature reserve at the outskirts of Morowa. Beautiful carpet of Everlastings in pinks yellows and whites, but only one sighting of what looked like a bunny orchid.Read more