Saturday 30th August 2025

Saturday 30^th August

SHE SAID:

We were up & off by 7.30am, meeting up with Wayne, Wendy, Deb, Mike, Kathy, & Luc out by the Balladonia Road to Mount Ragged. This is our 2nd trip out there in 6 weeks & I hoped to find some orchids, though had no idea what other than we saw budding Western Tiny Blues & Spiders out there back in July.

The track was wetter than before & it took us 2 hours to get to the rock car park. Several orchids were found along the track in & up to the mount. Two nuts, Kathy & Wayne, tackled the trek to the top. But then they missed out on the orchids around the campground as there wasn’t enough time for them to look there before we headed out.

Anyhow, we had a great trip out, finding possibly 20 different orchids, & it was rounded out with dinner at the Condingup Tavern. We got back to Bertie around 7.30pm, a long day, especially for Geoff, my long-suffering orchid finder, surrounded again by orchid nuts!

Drive in

White Western Tiny Blue
Blue Beard & a white form
Common Spider, Esperance White Spider
Dainty Leek

Bearded Dragon

Weevil carapace

HE SAID:

We were up before the sparrows again, about 6:30am. Anyway, we managed to get ourselves going and were at the RV point in the middle of nowhere a few minutes early. The 4WDs all lowered the tyre pressures for the trek ahead, and off we went into the mud. It was much wetter than last time, but with some off-road option selections as we went our ute performed well. I engaged the mud/ruts option a few times, which activated the rear diff-lock, helping us to stay straight in some very slippery bits. 

Deb produced some very tasty ginger biscuits at the Mt Ragged carpark, wanders were had, and orchids were found. 

Communication, on the other hand, was lacking, with people driving off at random times without telling anyone else, leaving us wondering WTF was going on. It turned out that they knew what they were doing. But we didn't. Apparently the 2-way radios were more decorative for them than practical. I was quite pissed off.

Dinner at the pub was good. But after a while I just zoned out; My orchid chat threshold had reached its daily limit. Luckily Varena suggested that we should wrap it up, and off we all went.