We aimed for north east of the city of Mandurah, for what we came to learn was the shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale. In the brochure, it showed Jarrahdale as an historic town with a good place for lunch, and then we planned to move on to Serpentine Falls. Once more, we seem to visit waterfalls, even though our home is in Niagara Falls.
This is the Google Earth map of the area. Mandurah, where we now live, is in the bottom left corner, and Serpentine and Jarrahdale are in the top right corner. You can notice vertical bands of colour on the map. From left to right, the two blue colours are the ocean, then the light colour is the more populated coastline.
The lighter green was flat land that seemed to primarily be used for grazing cattle and growing hay. You can then see the darker area, where we saw the landscape change as we entered a more forested area with some rolling hills and winding roads. It was quite picturesque, and a welcome change to see some greenery. From what we've experienced, there isn't much lush greenery in Mandurah.
As the brochure suggested, we stopped at the general store in Jarrahdale for lunch. This store was built in 1872 and was moved to this site in 1959 and has traded there ever since. The food was excellent, and we were able to sit outside as the weather was beautiful.
At the back of the store was a lovely garden area. Greg noticed this succulent there, but it's not easy to see the detail as it was in a sunny location and it was mid-day.
Getting a closer look, we could see its beautiful colours and shapes.
After lunch we moved on through this historic town, and Greg noticed a sign for Serpentine Dam. We turned and found ourselves on a winding road for a few kilometres, and then we came upon the road that crossed the dam.
This photo was taken near the dam, but it's difficult for a photo to show how beautiful it looked, with the mix of colours. We also went to higher ground, but I didn't get any photos there.
Driving a little further we came upon an established picnic area. We had a lengthy chat with one family; parents on vacation from Scotland, visiting their daughter and granddaughter who immigrated from Scotland four years ago.
They had an audience of about 40 birds, given the family had brought sunflower seeds with them. These birds were fearless of people, so I'm guessing they are regularly fed by people.
I gingerly went closer, hoping to get a good photo without using the zoom.
No zoom needed with these birds; in fact I had to back up a little as a couple of them came close, to check me out!
The daughter told us these are Australian ringneck parrots, also known as 28 parrots.
We continued on what was signed as a "tourist route" and found that we circled around the Serpentine National Park, which was all forested. We never did see the falls, but we enjoyed what we did see.
While at the cafe, I read a glossy magazine-type release for the shire, addressing current events for the area. Much of the content covered their anticipated population growth: from its current population of 28,000, to 100,000 by 2050. This growth will supposedly come about from immigration. Given Australia's immigration policy has recently been compared with Trump's stance (or vice versa), I find it hard to believe those figures.
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