Trip 51 – Same, same, but different

Our 51st trip was a bit of a last-minute affair. Mads and Quade decided they wanted to go camping, I’d had some things come up at work (i.e. a lack of it), so we thought bugger it, why not slip away for a quick weekend in the bush.

With oh so many options to choose from in W.A., we of course picked our favourite local spot, the Dryandra Woodlands. However, this trip we went silly and chose to stay at the Gnaala Mia campground, rather than our normal spot at Congelin. The reason for our change of camping locale was due to friends of ours, Lyle and Andrea, as they’d camped at Gnaala Mia a couple weeks ago and experienced numbats and quolls at the campground.

So, with chill weekend vibes in our mind, and a van packed with nibblies, wine and firewood, we set off on the Friday for two nights in Dryandra.

Finding two sites adjacent to each other in the top loop, up near the road end, we quickly setup and decided to do a short numbat hunting drive to see if we could tick that off our “must do whilst at Dryandra” list quickly. Which, if successful, would afford us the opportunity to do absolutely bugger all for the rest of the trip.

First stop, a quick spin through our usual stomping ground, Congelin. Which surprisingly, was almost empty, with just two sites being used by tenters. This is the quietest we’ve seen it in years! Leaving Congelin, we spotted the local, large Echidna a-wombling across the track so stopped for a quick g’day and pic.

Then it was off up Mangart Road, en route to Marri Rd which is where we normally see our Numbats. However, just a few hundred metres up Mangart Rd, Mads spots the first Numbat of the trip, which looked to be a young nummie as it was very small. Despite being small, it had sass, and allowed us to watch and take pics from the car, whilst it meandered through the spring grass and wildflowers. We spent a couple of mins with this one, staying in the car, before leaving it to it’s day.

We finished the typical Marri loop but didn’t see any other numbats, so it was back to camp for cheese and nibblies for lunch. Quade and I got the campfire going, whilst Jules and Mads managed to polish off a couple bottles of champagne and then got all giggly and talkative for the rest of the night – Quade and I shared secret eyerolls and eyebrow raises as they metabolised their drinky poos.

Dinner was bangers on the BBQ in bread and was smashing. It was so good, that while we were enjoying said bangers, we heard some rustling, followed by a crash, looking up to see a guilty looking Quoll quickly exit sideways. He’d been up on the table and managed to snag a snag for his dinner.

This reminded me to set the camera trap up, which I did, directly behind the van, no more than 5 metres from where we were sitting by the campfire. Although the picture quality is crap, the camera trap did manage to capture multiple visits by the Quoll, a Possum and Woylies across the two nights. My highlight of the trip was when I was by myself at the fire, brushing my teeth before bed, and a Quoll ran out of the bush, proceeded to run up and down the small log delineating our camping area from the bush, not more than 2 metres from me, before deciding I was boring and disappearing back into the bush. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me, however, I doubt I’d have gotten a pic as the little buggers are small and very quick.

Jules cooked smashing home-style baked beans on toasted sourdough for brekky the following morning which we washed down with fresh ground coffee.

Just after brekky, I was watching our neighbour do his best stealth walk, when I realised, he was following a numbat which had wandered through his campsite and was currently making its way, slowly through the middle of the camp area. I grabbed my camera and managed to get a bunch of pics of this chill nummie as he wandered through the campsite, at one point coming to within 2 metres of me, as he moved out to the wider woodlands for his termite hunting expedition that day. Way cool and Lyle and Andrea’s experience was proven as we’d now seen both Quoll’s and Numbats at camp.

Then it was off to Narrogin for a quick visit as Quade had done his boarding school out there, and Mads hadn’t been there before. Quade assured us Narrogin hadn’t changed a bit in the 10 years since he’d been there. But, we managed to find a nice snot block, aka Vanilla Slice, at the bakery before leaving.

Taking the back roads back to camp, we grabbed a little more firewood en route and reacquainted our arses with a camp chair aside the campfire.

Later that afternoon, we did a little walk through the park to shoot some wildflowers and take in the sights. Following which we re-observed the morning nummie returning from his termite foray, moving slowly back through the middle of the campground, returning to his burrow for the evening.

Saturday night proved hot satellite spotting, which then enabled us to smash the family sized block of Cadbury’s we’d brought down – as you can’t eat chocolate until you’ve spotted, and had independently verified, a satellite.

Jules and I were abruptly and rudely awakened later that evening by a possum who’d decided that our BBQ plates shouldn’t in fact sit on the BBQ box, and rather they’d be better off chucked on the ground, causing a ruckus sometime before midnight.

Sunday dawned calm and sunny, and we had a lazy brekky of toasted ham & cheese croissants, with a side granola, yoghurt and berry compote – yum bloody yum. This was followed by an easy pack-up and we were heading back home, pulling in at lunch time, allowing for an easy afternoon unpacking and cleaning up.