It is probably fair to say that most Australians are entirely unaware of one of the world's most important temperate woodlands, even though many people drive through them on the seemingly near-obligatory journey 'across the Nullarbor', the huge 4,000km trip from the east coast of Australia to Perth, capital of Western Australia. The Great Western Woodlands cover some 16 million hectares - the size of England - of semi-arid, largely waterless country in the area that includes Australia's most recent major gold finds; the region is known, both popularly and formally, as the Western Goldfields. The lack of surface water and low soil fertility (by European standards) means that the woodlands and heathlands of the system have been left largely intact - it is the largest remaining relatively untouched area of Mediterranean climate woodland in the world.
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| Approximate delineation of the Great Western Woodlands, which in part straddle the Great Eastern Highway from eastern Australia to Perth. However, a more satisfying way of experiencing it is to take the 300km Granite and Woodlands Discovery Track from Hyden to Norseman. It is largely unsealed but perfectly suitable for conventional vehicles. |
It is underlain by the Yilgarn Craton, a vast block of very ancient granitics - more than 2.6 billion years old, with some formations 3.7 million years old. The Yilgarn Craton was one of the parts of 'original Australia', the bits to which other lumps of land became stuck as it roamed the world's oceans. (I hope this technical talk isn't too off-putting!) A feature of the landscape is the appearance of granite outcrops towering over the trees.
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| Granitic outcrop on the Granite and Woodlands Discovery Track. A characteristic of these outcrops is the presence of gnamma holes (known elsewhere as panholes or opferkessels), naturally eroded cavities in the rock; they may be small, as above, or large, below. They were important water sources for Aboriginal People (and European travellers), and very important ecological refuges for plants and animals. |
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| Newman Rocks near Balladonia. |
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| Australian Shelducks Tadorna tadornoides on Newman Rocks. They have few options for water in this part of the world. |
Such ephemeral stream lines as there are flow into a system of salt lakes, remnants of ancient river systems; after heavy rains they can fill, offering the ducks their only other opportunity, but mostly they are dry with a covering of salt.
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| Salt lake, Dundas Nature Reserve, east of Norseman. |
As for the woodlands themselves, they are absolutely gloriously and bewilderingly diverse - among some 3,300 flowering plant species there are over 80 species of eucalypt! Think of that next time you scratch your head in an eastern forest with perhaps three or four euc species. And to my eye at least these semi-arid woodlands are very beautiful.
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| Gimlet Eucalyptus salubris woodland over bluebush Maireana sp., east of Norseman. |
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| Gimlet woodland with samphire near a salt lake east of Norseman. |
May I introduce you to a few of these woodland eucalpyts? They are trees you're not going to meet elsewhere for the most part - and like some other western ones, they can be rather more dramatic that some we're familiar with in the east.
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| Sand Mallee E. eremophila, Balladonia; found throughout the Goldfields. |
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| E. georgei north of Norseman. This one is found in only a few scattered localities, and I count myself very lucky to have found it. |
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| Detail of Gimlet bark - I just can't get enough of this tree! |
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| Dundas Blackbutt E. dundasii, Norseman. Dundas is the name of the shire. There is an excellent Woodlands Walk off a scenic drive through a hillside reserve in Norseman, which introduces several of the trees. It's east of the railway, accessed from the town via Mines Road and Battery Road. |
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| Merritt E. urna, Norseman. Merritt is more widely distributed in south-west WA. In the 1920s and 1930s it was heavily logged in the Goldfields for mine props and firewood. Densely regenerating stands are commonplace. |
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| Coral Gum E. torquata Norseman. Restricted to a small range between Coolgardie and Norseman, it is often grown as s street tree for its lovely pink flowers. |
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| Dundas Mahogany E. brockwayi, Norseman. George Ernest Emerson Brockway worked for the WA Forestry Department for 40 years from the 1920s, and spent a lot of time based in Kalgoorlie. The tree is limited to the Norseman area. |
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| Golfields Blackbutt E. lesoeufii.Restricted to the central Goldfields, south to Norseman. There were three Le Soeuf brothers, all scientists and zoo directors around the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. I suspect this was named for Ernest who spent many years working in Western Australia. |
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| Ribbon Bark Mallee E. sheathiana, Goldfields Woodlands National Park, Great Eastern Highway. This is a distinctive species due to the numerous hanging ribbons of bark, and more widespread than most of the others featured here. Jeremiah Sheath worked as a landscape gardener at King’s Park in Perth, becoming Superintendent. Ill-health, apparently attributed to his all-weather outdoor work, led to extended sick leave from which the government compulsorily retired him without retirement pay. The King’s Park Board, presumably through shame, gave him a £100 honorarium. He died in 1915. |
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| Wheatbelt Wandoo E. capillosa, Goldfields Woodlands National Park, Great Eastern Highway. Closely related to the more familiar Wandoo E. wandoo, this one typically grows on crumbling granite ridges. |
It would be logical now to proceed to other plants, but frankly there are so many that they deserve their own posting, which they will get next time. Instead I'll conclude this instalment with a few animals that I recall from my times in the Goldfields.
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| Grey Butcherbird Cracticus torquatus, Norseman. Widely distributed in woodlands and drier forests across Australia, closely related to the Australian magpies, currawongs and woodswallows. Always a delight for its melodious song. |
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| Male White-winged Triller Lalage tricolor along the Granite and Woodlands Discovery Track. This small cuckoo-shrike can also be found widely in Australia, but that's no reason to disregard it! |
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| Male Chestnut (or Chestnut-breasted) Quail-thrush Cinclosoma castanotumalong the Granite and Woodlands Discovery Track. They are limited to dry southern woodlands and mallee, and generally far less obliging than this one was! |
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| Crested Dragon Ctenophorus cristatus along the Granite and Woodlands Discovery Track. Another southern Australian southern dry woodland specialist, which we found to be especially associated with the granitic outcrops. |
I hope that you're already inspired to go and explore, but maybe you could wait until next week so you can see some of the flowers you've got to look forward to as well.
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