Kings Park

I have been stagnating in my house for weeks now (because I keep working the flipping weekends! I know I have no life but please....?). So anyway I decided I would go on a nature trek (read stroll, much more fitting) around Kings Park.

For those who do not know about Kings Park it is this mass of 'real aussie bush' plonked right in the middle (or just left of it!) of the central business district. Bill Bryson even claims to have seen an echidnea (big spikey hedgehog thingy with a cloaca) ambling past when he was there. Dave says this is impossible seeing as they are essentially nocturnal and incredibly shy. Dave hates old Bill and says that he makes up fiction and tries to pass it off as fact. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story and all that! Like the story that Bill tells about people in the Northern Terroritories not being able to vote because they don't live in a state!...but I digress.

Anyway Kings Park is made up of bushland and botanical gardens all overlooking the skyscrapers. It is pretty amazing. It's about 1000 acres and is set on Mount Eliza but was renamed Kings Park after some visiting King. Edward I think (Peter, this is where you can correct me!!).

As everyone around here knows it is now the time of the wild flower season. I haven't seen this flower madness in full swing yet but have been promised a fairly wild time! (see what I did there?!!) Apparently I am to expect carpets of colour everywhere I look and hundreds of different flowers growing in differing regions of WA depending on the alkalinity of the soil and the concentration of varying minerals. I have been excitedly pointing out flowers to Dave asking 'Is that one? Or is that one?' Only to be answered with the same thing 'No, Natalie, that is a weed! No, that is a coke can' etc etc.

And so off I went to confront nature and become a flower snapping photographic genius. I was dressed in my full walking regalia: tough jeans so the mossies can't get me, knee high clomping boots so the snakes can't bite me and sparkly top in case I get lost within its gum tree prison and have to use the mirrors decorating it to attract the attention of the helicopter rescue brigade (up here for thinking!) I had decided to start tramping through the bushland like some intrepid explorer but got a little bit scared of the snakes which were obviously lying in wait for my juicy ankles and was convinced some red back spider would fall out of a red gum and land on my shoulder, hiss and then sink his teeth into my shoulder (also juicy! It's this country, I can't stop eating!!). So when I saw a sign saying 'Nature Trail, this way. Suitable for wheelchairs and prams' I couldn't help myself!

Pretty soon I was enveloped by the gum trees and banksias. There was nothing but bushland and I couldn't even see the tops of the skyscrapers anymore. I would have felt all brave and conquering was it not for the concrete path I had not strayed from and the frequent joggers overtaking me. So I did something daring. I tiptoed gingerly over the tops of the wild orchids, kangaroo paws and shrubs and clung to the eucalypts whilst watching closely for the slithering out of the corner of my eye.

And guess what? I saw NO snakes, spiders or other assorted dangerous animals. I think it's all a big myth to frighten away the poms. I mean who would want to share a country with dangerous things that could easily kill them in their beds? The Aussies know that we're all scaredy cats and could possibly pee ourselves with fear when confronted with something with teeth! They just want to keep this paradise all to themselves so they make up stories about monsters and peddle their horror tales back to Blighty!

So from here on in it's flipflops all the way!