Stirling Ranges 2 Nights

Plan was to leave for the Stirling Ranges on Saturday, camp for 3-4 nights then on to Walpole for another 3-4 nights camp and 2 nights in Pemberton. Due to storm warning for the weekend, we postponed our departure till Monday and cancelled our accommodation booking in Pemberton.

Mt Trio Caravan Park had only 1 camper when we arrived, and 2 more cars came later in the afternoon. It was blissfully peaceful and quiet. More arrived Tuesday for the wildflower tour Wednesday morning.

Tuesday morning, we woke early to start the 16km return hike from the campgrounds to the peak of Mt Hassell. However, the rain overnight continued all morning, so we decided to do a shorter hike up Mt Trio, the wildflower mountain, instead. Whilst preparing breakfast at the kitchen, we meet a lovely young man from the UK who is in his third week of a year's tour around the world. We discovered a shared love of orchids, and he came on the hike with us. As the rain picked up and the wind howled around us , the 3 of us decided to abandon hike and turn back. We had been climbing for 40 minutes.

Back to our camp at the caravan park which fortunately had a camp kitchen which we could take shelter in for lunch and wait till the rain abated. We founded quite a few different spider orchids in the stroll around the grounds.

We learnt that the cowslip orchid is the most hybridised orchid on the wildflower tour Wednesday morning. There were 3 different hybrids of the cowslip and the fairy orchid in a small area of about 1m².

A stop at Cranbrook Wildflower Reserve did not disappoint. There were bee orchids, more white fairy orchids, pink enamel and different leek orchids.

As more rain was forecasted in the next few days, we decided to head straight home and forego camping at Walpole and Pemberton.Read more