This 470 hectare reserve 8km from Piesseville on the Piesseville Jaloran Road is wonderfully diverse bush on a high ridge between the Arthur and Buchanan rivers. It stands as a lone remnant of an ancient gently sloping upland lateritic upland, which is shown in green and black colours on the radiometics image. Waterways leading away from it in all directions have eroded the surrounding landscape away, often down to more fertile soils formed from the underlying granite and dolerite bedrock.

There are no trails in the reserve apart from a short dead end road and a boundary track,which is suitable for 4 wheel drive vehicles. I can drive my 2 wheel drive ute on the boundary south of the main road, and for much of the northern side but am stopped by a steep breakaway on the western side and deep white sand on the east. It is a long walk to Wagin or Narrogin if you get stuck
It is a wonderfully diverse reserve, which reflects the immense age of our lateritic landscape where different plants have adapted to changes in soil type that may not be noticeable at the surface.These adaptations are so specific that I can predict the soil type as I walk through the bush. There is no sudden flush of wildflowers. One sees a scattering of different species, which change from place to place and month to month from July to November.  A  moderately fit person can experience these changes by walking along the boundary track.
To fully appreciate the landscape I walked through the reserve about every 3 weeks using Google Maps as a guide.
The underlying geology is  reflected in landscapes and native vegetation in the reserve. There are several mafic stony/loamy laterite areas, which have eroded into steep breakaways and valleys covered in Brown, Blue, and Silver Mallet, dense mallee thickets, and Red Morrel trees. These starky beautiful areas with almost no understorey plants are particularly common on the west side of the reserve and the northern side of the road.
The following image shows them dominating the ridge which runs in an arc on the north side of the Jaloran Piesseville Road. They correspond with brown shaded bush areas.

A small stony mesa in the southeast corner has a grove of  Labichea lanceolata, which I have only seen before in Tutanning Nature Reserve and interesting lichen covered niches amongst the ironstone.

The northeastern edge is a good spot to see vegetation changes where a breakaway has cut into the lateritic upland. You can drive around the edge with a robust vehicle. The following landscape image shows a typical bowl-shaped lateritic breakaway, which has cut back into a sandy and stony gravel upland. 

Picture1 on the landscape image shows the edge of a breakaway, which has formed from erosion of a sandy gravel plain to the right of the image to form a kwongan gravel slope that changes in plant species as the soil becomes sandier downslope. In the background one can see a mallet thicket where the breakaway has entered a mafic ironstone/ loamy gravel area.

Pictures 2 and 3 show vegetation on the gravelly upland area.

The slope on the top most edge of the breakaway has a grove of mallees on sand over clay soil.

The breakaway bowl valley has cut into the mafic bedrock to form red brown loams and loamy gravels that support Brown, Blue and Silver Mallet, Red Morrel, mallee woodland with little shub cover apart from patches of Melaleuca broombush.

The breakaway bowl ends mid slope and a narrow Wandoo covered waterway passes in a narrow channel down a gravelly slope, and then widens to an attractive mixed vegetation spot adjoining the road. 

This area is a good Spring wildflower spot.

The western side of the reserve consists of a north-south lateritic ridge, which has been eroded on its western edge by Newman Brook to expose the underlying bedrock. A track from the road leading north on the western edge  is a bit rough but is accessable for most vehicles up to the edge of a steep breakaway. A side track near the entrance leads to a parking spot in pleasant woodland. After  passing this turnoff the track passes through sandy, loamy and rocky soils formed from granites and dolerite with attractive orchids and other spring wildflowers - particularly where the track enters Jam-Rock Sheoak bush and turns left.
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I drive to one of my favourite spots by continuing uphill and parking in the corner where the track turns left again. A walk east into the reserve reveals an ancient lateritic landscape, which is shown on the following oblique image.This is a wonderful remnant of a subdued landscape of a North-South  gravelly ridge merging into a sandy gravel and sand side slope, an ancient shallow waterway to the west, then another ironstone ridge.  Distinct vegetation types, which can be seen on the map resemble a  native garden as one walks through the bush.

The steep breakaway is part of a stony gravel rise with open Wandoo, Brown Mallet, Silver Mallet, mallee woodland, which is beautiful to walk through on a misty July morning.

After weaving through the prickly scrub, you come to a faint hollow of an old waterway bounded to the east by a gentle prickly gravel slope at the base of a stony gravel ridge. The waterway meanders downhill before merging into Wandoo-Rock Sheoak sandy patch, which has Cowslip and Green Spider orchids in September

To the east the sandy woodland opens up into a gentle kwongan sandplain slope containing a range of shrub and herb species and the occasional Rock Sheoak, Nuytsia florabunda and Banksia attenuata trees. To the south the sandplain ends abruptly at a breakaway down to woodland below.

Going upslope to the north a circular Eucalyptus adesmophloia patch stands out from the sandplain vegetation which changes to prickly Dryandra kwongan gravel.

A north-south ridge upslope to the east from the mallee thicket is the oldest land surface of gravel with circular patches of Silver Mallet.

I was stunned to find a large mallet, which had toppled over recently to reveal a root system that grew almost entirely in 40cm of soil over a dense ironstone pavement. See more information on this amazing plant in this Foxypress.

The reserve on the south side of the Piesseville Jaloran Road consists of a patchwork of lower slope, and sudued upland lateritic soils. Much of it is easy to walk through and attractive woodland or kwongan, which is good birdwatching and mixed wildflower country. The reserve has not been burnt for many decades, and has retained rare sights like coral lichen growing below local sedges on sandplain. 

Summary

• A wonderfully diverse reserve in good condition with a mix of landscapes and vegetation.
  
• Good birdwatching.
  
• Difficult to access, no trails, no facilities. 

This 288 hectare DBCA reserve adjoins the railway line 21km east of Narrogin.The reserve is generally in excellent condition but has sensitive areas that could be destroyed by uncontrolled public access. Luckily this is unlikely because there is no road access without driving next to a railway line, and internal  tracks are only suitable for 4WD vehicles.

The reserve is a north-south ridge with a central east-southeast trending high point ridge and adjoining mafic dyke, which extends east to kwongan bush on the north side of Yilliminning Rock. The whole reserve is underlain by igneous bedrock with roughly east-west mostly granite bands with varying silica levels that have formed mostly sandy and loamy soils. Remnants of an ancient lateritic layer on central and southern uplands contain an interesting kwongan and woodland mosaic of sandy, gravelly, and ironstone soils.

Boundain is a wonderfully diverse reserve with a range of vegetation types that changes abruptly as one moves from one soil type to another.Because it is so changeable there is few mass flower displays, but there is a large number of flowering plants that vary as one walks through and change throughout the flowering season.
​It is great bushwalking country but has no trails apart from a rough central road, and perimeter track. I visited the reserve several times from July to November and was delighted each time. Landscape types are described below.

Zone 1 consists of granite outcrops and associated soils, which vary in sand content.  Overall there is little wildflower diversity, but I saw Cowslip,  Greenhood, Green Spider, Sugar, Donkey, and Little Pink Candy orchids.

​The northern edge of section1a is a low sandy ridge consisting of overgrown Rock Sheoaks with little understorey and open Wandoo woodland. 

​This merges into a mallee rise then a band of granite outcrops.
This then merges into a lower east-west line of reddish loamy soil, which also forms a steep breakaway marking a change to a lateritic upland pleateau (Zone 2)

Section1b is a large bare granite outcrop, which extends up the hill. This is an extraordinarily attractive and diverse spot., which has a range of ephemeral wildflowers, lichens and orchids, and interesting rock patterns.
The lichens and wetland plants are very delicate.
​Please be very careful when walking here and keep away when plants and lichens have dried up. 

Section1C is an east west line of high granite outcrops, which is bounded by the central access track on the north and lateritic soils of zone 3 on the south sides. Vegetation mostly consists of Rock Sheoak woodland.  Keep an eye out for signs with words of wisdom from the mysterious Boundain Philosopher.

A small stony laterite mesa bounded by a waterway with a narrow band of attractive Wandoo woodland crosses the track about half way up the slope of the track. By parking here and walking south one can see the dramatic change from granite country to species-rich lateritic kwongan of Zone 3 (No trail).

Zone 2 is an ancient lateritic mesa covered with prickly kwongan vegetation interspersed  with isolated mallees. The northern edge plunges down steep mafic breakaway containing Brown Mallet, Red Morrel and Wandoos. The western side is a Melaleuca Tea-tree and Wandoo woodland slope that merges into the granite outcrop below. This area has many wildflower species that range in flowering time from June to November..

​On the southern side is a less distinct breakaway covered with kwongan scrub that ends in a sandy Rock Sheoak hollow. Good spot for Green Spider Orchids in September.

Zone 3 is a wonderful example of a variable  lateritic landscape, that covered all of the uplands in this area for millions of years, before it was eroded away as a result of geological uplift. The oldest spots are silver mallet mafic stony plateau remnants, separated by gentle upland kwongan gravel hollows.A change of slope on the west was an ancient low breakaway that separates this upland from a sandy kwongan- mallee - wandoo slope. Another steep Brown Mallet breakaway on the southern side leads to a a varied lansdcape with some granite, a mafic loam valley, and a sandy rise. Very scenic country with many eucalypt species.

Section 3a at the top of the slope consists of Silver Mallet ironstone islands with a few areas of mallee and Red Morrel, which are separated by Dryandra prickly kwongan. Very scenic but not many wildflowers 

Section 3b is the southern edge of section 3a. If you walk in from the southern boundary you will pass through a patchwork of shallow granite woodland, a Brown Mallet breakaway with a Red Morrel valley, mallee woodland, tea tree thicket, prickly kwongan and sandy kwongan upland. 

Section 3c is a lateritic sandy gravel slope below the upland. Vegetation ranges from a species-rich sandy kwongan scrub merging downslope into wandoo woodland then the granitic Rock Sheoak sandy soils with poison plants and spring everlastings.
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There is a marked change of vegetation on the northern side  where section 3c kwongan meets section 2b granitic rock sheoak woodland.

​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 merges into the extensive Narrogin Valley flats, then narrows as it passes through 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 extending approximately five kilometres upstream in a north-westerly direction. Paleochannel sediments are about three million years old, which coincides with the Darling Range uplift.
The lake system ends 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 mostly 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 from Ibis to Noman lakes water passes through a gap between uplands on either side. I think that faulting and uplift  associated with 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, duck shooting, fishing, and picnic spot before it became saline. Taarblin is a large 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 suggests that this lake once teemed with waterbirds (I found shotgun cartridges and snail shells). The lake is now bare and saline. A salty depression East of the lake 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.

From Ibis Lake water 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 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 from 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 a very interesting area. 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. The mounds were created by the local branch of the WA Field and Game Association 1n 1983 as a WA Fisheries and Wildlife experiment to grow vegetation for waterfowl habitat. 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.  

All vegetation except Balgas was destroyed on sand and gravel soils on the west (private land) and south of the rock.
A big surprise in the following year was the appearance of native grasses and Kennedia prostrata. Kennedia seeds were obviously more fire resistant than grass seeds. There are dense patches of mainly Austrostipa species in less severely burnt spots.By 2025 these plants were being replaced by Rock sheoak regrowth.

on a sandy grave rise balgas and some shrubs resprouted and there was a germination of kwongan shrubs and herbs.

Images below show a site on the entry road with sandy surfaced soils with scattered rock outcrops

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.