​A string of reserves centered on a chain of salt lakes in the Arthur River stretches down from Lake Toolibin (the last remaining wheatbelt freshwater lake). The rest of the lakes are saline, but were fresh or brackish up to the 1950’s.

​​The area was surveyed for farming from 1904 to 1907. The Nomans Lake hall was built in 1911 and is still in use. The surveyor Oxley passed through the area in the 1890’s, although prior to this, shepherds and sandalwood cutters were in the district. Abundant food and water in the lake must have been very important for Noongar tribes, but no evidence remains. Diseases spread by contact with Europeans decimated these people and destroyed their social structure in the 1880’s, and access to the lakes was progressively reduced by land clearing and farming.
Local farmer Stan Prideaux’s recollection of the lakes during the depression states ‘One pleasant recollection from those days was the state of the environment. The lake systems were generally full each year. Timber in and around the lakes was alive and the water only slightly brackish. Waterfowl abounded in the lakes – swans, ibis, heron, duck, water hen and other. Ground birds and birds of the forest were also plentiful – plovers, ground larks, sky larks, curlew, parrots, galahs, swallows, quail, black and white fantails – to mention some’. Source: Nomans Lake a Collection of Memories.  Heidi Astbury and Lyn Chadwick 1987.
Today the lake beds are bare or dotted with dead trees and salt tolerant plants, but vegetation in surrounding uncleared land is often in excellent condition. The area is seldom visited because few lakes can be reached by road and surrounding saline areas are uninviting. With much walking I discovered starkly beautiful and varied salt lakes in a range of landscapes with surrounding areas of saline flats and often attractive healthy woodland.  

​The area is a great example of the WA Wheatbelt’s ‘reversed’ rivers’ - In most areas of the world, rivers start as small active streams in mountains and become larger and more sluggish as they approach the coast, but many large wheatbelt rivers start in subdued  plains and become more active as they pass through the hilly Darling Range to the ocean.
The Arthur River is ancient and begins in the old plateau sandplain landscape east of Toolibin before passing between uplands associated with the Binneringie Dyke to the North and a large ridge associated with the Buchanan River to the south. A chain of lakes merged into the extensive Narrogin Valley flats, then narrowing as it passes into the Darling Range to Join the Blackwood. The river system tributaries and associated uplands frequently run in northwest-southeast and southwest-northeast patterns, which reflect fractures in the underlying crystalline bedrock caused by repeated supercontinent collision and separation cycles.

Why are there lakes in this particular area? here are some clues.
There is a paleochannel (buried river) system 300m wide and 40m deep beneath Toolibin lake and extending approximately five kilometres upstream in a north-westerly direction. Paleochannel sediments are about three million years old, which coincides with uplift of the Darling Range.
The lake system ends immediately above the intersection of the Yilliminning and Arthur Rivers. From that point the Arthur River channel becomes more actively flowing and highly saline. Much of the valley containing the lakes has healthy natural vegetation and mild salinity. A farmer told me that the lakes filled upstream from Little White Lake. Perhaps this coincides with flooding of the Yilliminning River.
An exaggerated terrain map I created shows that Ibis to Noman lakes pass through a gap between uplands on either side. I think that faulting and uplift possibly associated with from the Darling Range uplift reduced river slope where it joined the Yilliminning River and promoted lake formation. Some lakes are separated by dolerite dykes.

​Lake Descriptions

The following hyperlinks contain information on Lake Toolibin and salt lake formation as illustrated by Lake Taarblin. 
Cars can drive to the southern end of Taarblin from Williams Kondinin and Lakes roads. The lake was a popular water skiing, fishing, and picnic spot before it became saline. Taarblin is an enormous lake, which is separated from Ibis Lake to the south by a barrier formed by a dolerite dyke and adjoining heat-hardened granite. The dyke is exposed on the steep red clay  southeast bank. and boulders from the adjoining granite are artfully scattered on the shoreline. If you look closely you will find shells of tiny snails, which I also found in other lakes in the chain that fill most often. Good spot for landscape artists and photographers

Taarblin overflow passes through a  culvert under Lakes Road  into a  channel to Ibis Lake. In the early days, the road could only be traversed by a boat in winter. Remains of the old Astbury house can be seen by the water channel. Ibis Lake's name name suggests that this lake once teemed with waterbirds (I found shotgun cartridges and snail shells). The lake is now bare and saline. East of the lake is a salty depression, which contains a soak that has become saline. This is bounded by a dolerite rise (which was Bill Astbury's favourite paddock).  Water from salt land to the east enters another inlet on the south of Ibis lake and exits again a bit further along.

The waterway then enters and exits the south side of Billy Lake. All lakes have surrounding sandy dunes covered by salt tolerant shrubs, Casuarina obesa-Salt sheoak, and scattered paperbark trees and shrubs, but the dunes are larger around Billy Lake. I think that this is an indication that the lake fills less frequently. This lake has no defined waterway from the north apart from a man-made drain. Runoff appears to come from the wide valley above in flood years via numerous gilgai depressions covered by paperbark, broombush and salt tolerant vegetation. The lake itself is bleak, with a silty floor dotted with dead trees and bushes.   

Once again, water exits Billy Lake and enters Bokan lake from the south, which is repeated downstream. The lake chain also tends to lie on the northern edge of the wide valley.
​Aha, this is probably due to another geological influence on the lake system. Likely causes are the South Coast Jarrahwood Axis uplift, and the Australian Plate slowly subsiding beneath Indonesia, causing the continent to tip down to the north. Ancient rock platforms on the south coast indicate that the coast has risen by about 130 metres in the last 20 million years or so. 

Bokan Lake was the first lake in the chain with water I visited, and is quite scenic. It receives water quite often from creeks from a  large catchment to the north. I managed to drive down to the lake from Lakes Road through a saline flat on a  summer only track, but this is very boggy country. 

Runoff from Bokan Lake reaches Nomans lake, which adjoins the Wagin Wickepin Road. This lake was a popular recreation area in the early settler days.
White Lake is a forbidding site - a large circular and mostly bare area with a compacted floor ringed by low dunes. The lake directly adjoins a rise on its north side and only receives water when the main channel to its south flows. Clouds of acrid dust were blowing fom the lake bed when I visited.

Little White Lake is the last lake in the chain. Water flows into it frequently due to a large and mostly fresh water catchment to the north that flows through a salty flat dotted with dead trees to reach the lake. Despite the forbidding stretch of salt land one needs to cross to reach the lake,it is very interesting. I found several old nesting boxes, which had been nailed to trees on the eastern side indicating that someone valued the wildlife here at some time. 

The northen end of the lake floor contained typical dead trees and bare saltland, but an aerial image shows numerous mounds in the southern part. The sandy mounds are about 1.4 metres high surrounded by a shallow ditch. They resemble elevated bird nests but are a mystery. I also found a few old swan nests in clumps of dead trees in the lake.

I was surprised by the variation and amount of healthy woodland surrounding the lakes. There was Salmon Gum, York Gum, and Red Morrel woodland most likely growing over dolerite dykes, and mixtures of Wandoo, Salt Sheoak, York Gum, paperbarks and rushes.intermixed with saltland heath. I enjoyed seeing the vegetation changes as I walked through, and would enjoy seeing which seasonal flowers occur in the growing season. It is a pity that the area is difficult to access.
Woodland examples are shown below. 

A side effect of agriculture in the district has been a lack of regular fires to regenerate vegetation on unmanaged reserves. They become weedy and clogged with dead material for decades then razed by devastating bushfires.
​Unfortunately bushfires are becoming more common and more intense. After the February 2022 wildfire, which started near North Yiiliminning Nature Reserve, I established photomonitoring sites at Birdwhistle, North Yilliminning, and Ockley nature reserves to record landscape changes.
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The Birdwhistle Rock site monitors recovery of a predominantly granitic rock lansdcape. I only have one pre-fire image below of this reserve because it was weedy and overgrown. Vegetation on the rock had not been burnt for decades and the mostly Rock Sheoak vegetation areas were clogged with dense wild oats and dead sheoaks. 

The intense heat incinerated all surface life and even caused cracking and exfoliation of outcropping rocks.​ The heat caused the equivalent of thousands of years of erosion in a single event as flakes up to one centimetre thick fell off to reveal unweathered underlying granite.

Succeeding years have been a revelation. I found fire ephemeral species previously unrecorded in this area, and am intrigued by soil specific species remergence, dominance, and succession.

Within two months some Hakea petiolaris plants were resprouting. Note the swollen base on the following image, which indicates considerable age. Other shrubs such as Calothamnus quadrifidis, and Balga grass trees resprouted a bit later. Wandoos completely lost their bark and took much longer to resprout at ground level. Images below show Hakea and Stypandra glauca regrowth

​Ash beds from burnt trees were rapidly colonised by a bright orange flowering moss, which is gradually declining after the third year.
Stypandra glauca (Lamb Poison) regrew from tubers in the 2022 season, as dense colonies in rock cracks and shallow rocky soil. Before the fire it was relatively inconspicuous. This is another tough plant. The fire was so intense that it burnt surface soil organic matter, but didn't phase the Stypandra. 

Images below are from the base of the rock where the soil is shallow with numerous rock fragments and flakes washed down after the fire.

Rock cracks and the  main channel contained Stypandra glauca and shrubs before the fire, but Stypandra is now dominant.

Deeper soil areas were mainly ash and moss in the first winter/spring with orchids (mostly red beak and cowslip orchids,  a few Caladenia integra  and a profuse germination of Kennedia prostrata  (Running Postman).

I wish I paid more attention to other usually insignificant resprouters that popped up sporadically, as they included bush tucker plants. Shown below are 

Gyrostemon subnudis is a wiry fire ephemeral shrub, which usually lives for less than ten years. It completely took over some rocky sandy soil areas. It has male and female plants (dioecious). Female flowers and fruit resemble minipumpkins. By spring 2024 many plants were being eaten by spittlebugs and Rock Sheoaks were overtaking them.
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The sequence below is a Rock Sheoak thicket adjoining the parking area.

Deeper loamier soils in valleys suffered soil erosion initially, but species that germinated grew very quickly, particularly grasses, Acacias (mainly Acacia saligna and Acacia acuminata) and rock sheoaks. Wild oat seedlings in the occasional less burnt spots are growing profusely, and will gradually spread throughout these areas.
​Valley on east side of the rock.

This site on the old sandalwood collectors track was Rock Sheoak /Wandoo / Acacia woodland. It is being populated by a wider range of species.  

A big surprise was the appearance of native grasses and Kennedia prostrata on sandy soils on the west side of the rock. Kennedia seeds were more fire resistant than the grass. There are dense patches of mainly Austrostipa species in less severely burnt spots.

About 5kms south of the centre of Pingelly on the Great Southern Highway, this 93 hectare reserve is a historic spot with lovely wildflowers. It was originally selected for gravel as ballast for the adjoining railway some time before 1900, then became a gravel pit for Pingelly shire in later decades. The northern side of the reserve is prime agricultural land and great wildflower country, which was saved from the plough by the gravel pits.
There are many bush tracks and an unofficial trail bike circuit. Apart from a high gravelly ridge to the south and a dolerite spur to the north, the land is gently sloping granitic sand or gravel over clay with a number of small waterways. Many of these tracks are only fit for 4-wheel drive vehicles due to boggy spots at waterway crossings.

Northern Side of Station Road
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The landscape changes from gently sloping open Wandoo woodland to the east which gradually rises to a Wandoo, York Gum and Rock Sheoak dolerite loam spur. It is excellent walking and wildflower country. Amongst the orchids I saw lots of Stark White Caladenia longicauda subsp. eminems and Green Spider Caladenia falcata orchids, a hybrid of the two, and an unusual Green Spider Orchid variant. I found some threatened Anigozanthus bicolor. I suspect that there are other interesting species to find on the winter-wet flat.

Southern Side of Station Road
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The reserve was designated for collection of gravel for railway line ballast before 1900, and this side is extensively disturbed. Most of the gravelly ridge has been mined for gravel, and gently sloping land to the north is a patchwork of tracks, clearings, soil heaps, and very weedy patches interpersed between almost pristine bush. Unfortunately some locals have also dumped rubbish here.

According to Peter Narducci, ​The ballast pit in Station Road was used to supply screened gravel for the Great Southern Railway. A spur rail line crossed the highway to the ballast pit from the Pingelly end and another spur line crossed the highway from the ballast pit towards the Popanyinning end. A railway station was constructed near to Station Road. The name Station Road has remained. In later years, the Shire of Pingelly excavated many metres of gravel from the ballast pit and was used to construct many of Pingelly's town streets.
Despite much searching of the area and adjoining railway line I could find no sign of railway station or lines. A spot shown on Google Maps labelled "Old Ballast Pit' coincides with a linear weedy area in a well defined waterway, and there is a similar linear weedy spot in an adjoining waterway to the north (see green areas on the map). I am intrigued about the locations as these areas would be waterlogged in winter, and certainly not suitable for train lines. Gravel dug by pick and shovel at the gravel pit was loaded on horse carts and screened at the ballast area.
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This was dangerous work.:- Eastern Districts Chronicle.  27th October 1900.
News reached York yesterday morning of a railway fatality, which occurred at the ballast pits some three miles from Pingelly, the previous evening. From the particulars to hand a railway employee named George Gould, whilst engaged "breaking" trucks out of the ballast pit in question accidentally slipped down between the trucks and was crushed to death instantaneously.
The police authorities at Beverley were immediately apprised of the terrible casualty, and P.C. Campbell was despatched to the scene of the occurrence for the purpose of conveying the body into Pingelly, pending a coronial enquiry.
A post-mortem examination will be made by Dr. House upon his return from Katanning, and an inquest will follow.

​​The reserve was also the site of Pingelly Race Club's first racing track, which I suspect is in one of the dense wild oat patches. Race goers who came down by train were outraged by the exorbitant one penny train fare!

The railway gravel pit forms a series of gently sloping north/south trenches in sandy/stony laterite on the northern side of the ridge. Perhaps horse carts ran down the trenches to be filled. The shire pit is clearly different because it occurs on loamy dolerite gravel to the south east and was more extensively mined using bulldozers. I think that the railway builders wanted ironstone gravel rock for the ballast that was sieved out from the the fines. An old railway pit at Yornaning was also stony gravel.

One side of the upmost railway trench will interest geology and landscape freaks like me because it reveals an ancient ironstone profile, which has been modified by time and climate change. More than a metre of ironstone overlies an ancient sloping mottled zone. From a distance the mottled zone looks like a normal dense white clay with iron-rich mottles, but it it contains light weight hard silcrete nodules in a compacted silty sand.
The profile suggests that over millions of years there has been a drier climate period when Proteceae was replaced by other vegetation - possibly eucalypts that created the silcrete nodules. I guess that they made good railway ballast.There is a 30 metre higher ironstone ridge to the southwest of this spot, so I think that the pit location was originally a sloping gravelly spur coming down from the ridge.

​A sign "Pingelly Understorey Seed Farm" at the entrance of a track to the pits appears to be a local Decade of Landcare Initiatve with ALCOA and Greening Australia. Sides of the pits have been planted to a range of mainly Proteaceae species, which are seeding prolifically.

The 148ha reserve is about 10km south of Pingelly where the Hotham River crosses the Great Southern Highway. Before European settlement, this area was particularly productive for Noongar people, having freshwater pools teeming with fish, gilgies, birds and animals. It is also the location of the ill-fated Pingelly town dam.
​Land clearing for agriculture caused the river and pools to silt and become salty, but the reserve is still an interesting and attractive place.
​I found this dolerite hand axe ,which fitted well in my hand, in the bed of the river. I left it in the reserve.

To enter the reserve turn into a side road/ parking bay at the sign just before you cross the Hotham River bridge going to Pingelly. All roads and trails through the reserve are dead end. About 400 metres along Lange Road is an unmarked track to the north. Cars can drive in to an obscure roundabout, which is a good spot to stop to explore for wildflowers. Soon after, the track becomes sandy - only suitable for 4WD vehicles. Keeping to the left the track ends at the Hotham River. Remains of the dam retaining wall is a 450 metre moderately difficult  walk through weeds and bush west along the river bank. 

This remarkable reserve has three main landscape types

• 1 The Hotham River, comprising a series of channels where the river     has changed course.


• 2 Adjoining sand dunes to the south.


• 3 An ephemeral pool adjoining the dunes then an upward slope of woodland, balgas and scrub overlying sand over gravel or clay and gravel soils.

  

To the east of the reserve is a large dune-surrounded saline wetland. Banksia sand dunes adjoining the river are uncommon in this area. Adjoining examples are Kokeby and the Yenyenning lakes to the north, Lake Yealering to the east, and Lake Toolibin to the southeast. Ancient land movements blocked and diverted ancient rivers to create lakes and wetlands at these places.
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This wetland marks the junction of the Hotham River South, Calcoran Brook, and Hotham River North on the northern edge of the Hotham River catchment. North and South Hotham rivers make a U-turn at the reserve to flow west/southwest, and there are unusual ephemeral ponds on the upside of dunes.

​So, what caused the Hotham South River to take a sharp turn here and why are there dunes and wetlands?  My simplified explanation follows.

What created this landscape?
This region is underlain by a  stable piece of continental rock called the Yilgarn Craton, which is mainly granite and gneiss, some of the world's oldest (over 3 billion years) rocks. As the craton formed, then joined and separated from others in supercontinent cycles, the bedrock cracked. These cracks are faults, and dolerite dykes (where magma beneath the continent has squirted up into the gaps. This area has more dykes than usual.
About 540 million years ago Australia was connected to the supercontinent Gondwana by Greater India to the west, and Antarctica to the south. Mountains associated with these connections eroded away to leave a subdued landscape. In this area, land sloped gently to the coast, but waterways often deviated along underground faults and dykes.
India gradually separated from WA creating a rift valley (the Swan Coastal Plain), which received sandy sediments via west flowing rivers from a divide around Corrigin.

​66 million years ago the Darling Range gradually rose up as a range of ridges east of the Darling Fault. An associated valley on the eastern edge of the range shows as a line of waterways roughly following the Great Southern Highway from Cuballing (Hotham River South), then up to Dalwallinu (Avon and Mortlock Rivers).
This and a possible east-west uplift just south of Pingelly, blocked rivers upstream of the reserve to create a lake. During periodic geological climate changes the lake filled and dried. In arid climate phases, sand blown from the dry lakebed formed dunes that were colonised by Banksias.
Eventually the river cut through a rise on the western side of the lake leaving the dunes and wetlands that exist now.

​The last feature is the seasonal pond on the upside of dunes in the reserve. Why would sandy dunes hold back water?
The answer is revealed in a radiometrics map. The red colouring in the image indicates a large dolerite dyke underneath the river channel and dune area. Dolerite weathers to reddish clay soils. In winter, subsurface water flowing down from sandier soils to the south meets less permeable dolerite clay and rises to the surface – hence a pond adjoining the dunes.
​Dolerite dykes are frequently found on the downside of salt areas, and may have also influenced the river direction.

Exploring the Reserve
Despite bring mined for sand and gravel and once having tracks associated with the pump and reservoir, there is a diverse range of lanscapes and vegetation which is mostly in good condition. I thoroughly enjoyed walking through the bush, but inexperienced walkers could become lost, and as in all our bush, kangaroo ticks may be a problem if one walks through vegetation in late spring, summer and autumn.
Orchid lovers can enjoy the range of spider and other orchids by exploring open land adjoining Lange Road.

Note that all bush tracks are sandy and potentially boggy. Only drive cars into area 2 to where there is a turn around spot. If using a 4WD please drive slowly and sparingly as this country is easily destroyed. Note, there is dieback in bush to the east of the reserve. Do not drive off tracks.

Area 1 gives a good cross section of the gentle slope down to the dunes. Mostly it is fairly easy and attractive walking country. Apart from a couple of small breakaways, soils are mostly sand over clay/gravel underlain at depth by granite or dolerite bedrock. Vegetation varies according to bedrock, with thicker bush and more orchids/other flowers on  paler sandy soils. 

​You can also often tell soil types by change in ant hill colour as you walk.There is a small group of Caladenia roeii clown orchids on the upslope of the road between the two low rises.

Area 2. Drive down the unmarked track and park at the (indistinct) roundabout.
2a is attractive open woodland on the upper side, which has a fine display of Chapmans Spider Orchids in September

2b is a short walk west from the parking loop. The ephemeral pond bounded by a line of Melaleuca phoenicia shrubs (ex Callistomen phoenicous) then dunes, is a geological oddity. It was once fresh, but has become slightly saline due to salt released from the subsoil of cleared land at the top of the slope. Most winters it hosts wetland plants, algae, and aquatic invertebrates. 

2c is a band of low sand dunes and interdunal hollows as you walk towards the river. Landscape and vegetation varies depending on depth of sand, with many different types of shrubland, but there are few orchids. Dunes consist of Banksia prionotes acorn banksia, Banksia attenuata candlestick banksia, and Allocasuarina huegeliana (rock sheoak) with little understorey.
​Interdunal areas are shrublands which vary greatly depending on the depth of sand over clay, and moisture availablity. They  are attractive in late spring due to the range of flowering species, which include some that are locally rare (e.g. Calytrix acutifolia, Grevillea anethifolia).
This has been a dry spring with fewer flowers than normal. 

Area 3 River.
The river area consists of the Hotham River, associated dry channels and fringing vegetation. The fringing vegetation is very weedy with lots of introduced grasses and Bridal Creeper. The old dam is about 450 metres west of the point where the track ends. LIttle remains apart from a line of posts, and to reach it is a scramble through uneven weedy land unless the river is dry and one can walk along the river bed.
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The dam and it's history is contained in this blog.

Area 4. This is a narrow strip of land containing a drain going between the highway and Power Street to the river. Lots of green spider orchids and flowering shrubs in September.

The 45 hectare Claypit Nature Reserve  is 33 kilometres east of Narrogin and 7 kilometres west of Wickepin. The reserve appears to be much larger because it surrounds a 5 hectare water reserve, and is surrounded by extensive uncleared land on private properties. The reserve is fenced on east, west and southern sides, but the fence on the west includes a wedge of private bushland in pristine condition. There is no boundary fence on the northern side. Most of the bush is in excellent condition, with relatively few weeds. The entry road splits into a continuing but rougher direct approach, and a more pleasant loop on the left. There are no facilities. Excellent bird watching location.

​​The reserve is a remnant of an ancient undulating upland plain, which separates the Avon and Hotham River catchments.
The multi-million year old plain can be likened to a layer-cake, with a top layer of gravel, sand, or ironstone overlying a pale/mottled/red clay (pallid zone) over decomposing granite or dolerite bedrock. Pallid zone is basically kaolinite clay and quartz grains. A very pure deposit is being mined at Uelelling Hill. It is also the clay in ochres.
A sign adjacent to the Narrogin Kondinin Road is a trifle misleading in associating the reserve with the mafic Binneringie Dyke, which is some kilometres further south. Underlying rock here is mainly granite with a few  intruding dolerite dykes. White granite kaolinite intruded by narrow red kaolinite seams from dolerite dykes can be seen on sides of cuttings as you drive to the water tank.

The ancient plain remnants are gravelly mesas, which are mostly bounded by steep-sided breakaways. Gravelly soil on the mesas has  wildflower-rich often Proteaceae shrubland, which interspersed by wandoo, rock sheoak, and brown mallet woodland.
Hard setting loam and clay soils from the pallid/pink zone on breakaway slopes and upland surroundings downslope are mostly dominated by  Brown Mallet woodland.
 Open Wandoo woodland and more dense Rock Sheoak thickets in and around granite outcrops have more fertile soils formed from basement rock.
​Much of the reserve is fairly easy walking country  but there are no signposted walk trails and people with a poor sense of direction may get lost.

I suggest a visit to the following two areas.

1. WICKEPIN WATER WATER TANK
​Park next to the water tank.

The tank has a capacity of 9 million litres, which is pumped through a pipe from the  Harris River Dam near Collie. Constructed in 1964, the tank is part of a water network that is very important to the district. before this, salinity of land and water sources,which began in the early 1900's caused severe fresh water shortages for people and livestock. Before scheme water, Wickepin residents were dependant on local wells and in desperate circumstances, water from the Wickepin Railway Dam.

​Two informal trails provide access to diverse and wildflower-rich country.
A track winding downhill around the water tank  to a granite outcrop features a range of spring wildflowers. Note impressive Tangled Grevillea clumps. The granite outcrop is on the northern boundary of the reserve. Please avoid treading on delicate lichens in and around the rock.
​Surrounding rocky bushland is choked with dead vegetation and can be difficult to walk through.

An easy walking informal track leads to the breakaway. This is pleasant gravel wildflower country. if you look carefully in land to the west, you may be lucky enough to see some Cowslip/Little PInk Fairy Orchid hybrids. Please leave them intact?- they are precious and uncommon.

2. CLAYPIT
The bare area was an old mining lease to excavate clay for house bricks produced in Narrogin. The red clay overlies a 30 metre wide east-west dolerite dyke, and white from relatively low quartz granite, are also sources of ochre. I collected and made my own red, orange and white ochre from here!
An informal dead-end track on the western side is an easy walk to the west with a breakaway on the left (south) side. The area is pleasant open bushland with some shrub understorey.