Millstream-Chichester NP

Python Pool, without the pythons

Snake Creek, no snakes here either

building a dam at Snake Creek

en route to Millstream Homestead

Daniel's "the three stages of wattle blossom"

The pool at Millstream homestead

Nice comfy melaleuca

We had a nice walk this morning to the old Millstream Homestead, which is 3k from our campsite along a dry creek bed, and through different terrain like spinifex scrub and then snappy gums alongside the creek. There’s a few information plaques about plants along the way, and one of them we could actually identify was bush plums, which look like really tiny olives or eggplants when they’re ripe. There are quite a few flowers out here already which is really nice, there’s a purpley Mulla Mulla, and Sturt Desert Peas of course, lots of wattles, and right at our campsite there’s lots of Millstream palms, which apparently have had trouble competing with Date Palms and Cotton Palms introduced by the people at the homestead. There’s also a few different Melaleucas, some with really papery bark which looks great constantly flaking off.

This afternoon we drove to Python Pool and Snake Creek which were further away than we realised. And on top of that they’re basically on the way out we’re taking tomorrow so we really should have done it then and saved the fuel…. Oh well. Python Pool is an amazing deep pool (but quite small so they call it a plunge pool here) at the base of quite big cliffs, which you can swim in in summer. This national park has apparently many of the most culturally significant indigenous sites in the north west, and you can see why – not only is it one of the few places that has water all year ‘round but it’s beautiful. It’s quite different to Karajini NP, and perhaps it would be better to see them the other way around because Karajini is just so dramatic that it makes Millstream Chichester seem a bit less exciting, but it’s still beautiful in its own way.

At one point we bush bashed along the creek for quite a way, hoping to find some aboriginal rock carvings that are apparently nearby, but no luck and it will be almost dark now by the time we get home. We were really going in a bit blind as the rangers don’t really want you to know where they are so there’s no advertising and no path. Nick’s a bit disappointed, but I’m sure we’ll see some in other places. There are also apparently sometimes Sturt Desert Peas down there with white eyes (instead of just the red or black eyed ones) but we didn’t see them either. It’s been threatening rain all day, so we’ve tried our trick of putting the tarp over the tent, and hopefully that will mean that it actually stays away. When we came back to our car at Snake Creek we met an older lady trying to bang tiny tent pegs into the rocky ground with an even tinier hammer, she’s just staying the night on her way between Karratha and Port Headland in a rental car and is game since she’s going to be the only one at that campsite! She’s got a tiny little tent too so let’s hope it doesn’t really rain for her sake, although she’s always got her car I guess. I’m not sure if she realises that the road to Port Headland is all dirt from here and I’m not sure how her Yaris will go on it…