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. 

The 100 hectare Yarling Nature Reserve  (36 kilometres east of Narrogin, 7 kilometres west of Wickepin, originally a mallet reserve), is a rarely visited patch of bush. Turn south from Williams Kondinin road on to Watt Road to access the reserve. The view from the road is mostly uninviting due to dense woodland, which hasn't been burnt for decades. This is not a place for the average tourist as there are no trails or facilities, and it is difficult to walk through some areas.
​However, it is an interesting spot with an attractive and wildflower-rich kwongan sand valley on the southern edge.

This area is part of a major watershed, which separates the Hotham, Arthur and Avon River catchments. It contains remnants of an ancient undulating lateritic plain, which has been eroded by river systems to the underlying granite. The millions of years old  plain can be likened to a layer-cake, with the top layer of gravel, sand, or ironstone overlying a pale/mottled clay (pallid zone) over decomposing granite or dolerite.
Like most reserves in the district, Yarling is mostly agriculturally poor laterite or rock. A line of breakaways separate a remnant of the ancient  plain from more recent soils on underlying layers to the north and west.

The northern breakaway roughly follows a dolerite dyke, which is is associated with the Binneringie Dyke further to the south. This is because the dyke was more resistant to erosion from the granite contact line being 'cooked' into more resistant rock, and stony laterite formed on dolerite being more erosion-resistant than that formed on granite.

Much of the sheoak forest is choked by dead saplings, which germinated after a wildfire over 50 years ago, and have slowly died off due to competition without any other fires to remove the dead litter. The shrub understorey has become impoverished because shrubs that depend on fire for germination have died.

A few patches of open Red Morrel woodland occur on dolerite brown loam.

Brrown Mallet whipstick woodland lines the breakaway slopes and edges and other areas where the pallid zone clay layer below the gravel is exposed. The mallets are mostly a uniform size due to mass regrowth after the fire over 50 years ago. Since then the stand has been very slowly thinning in a fairly monotonous landscape.

The ancient lateritic plain on the south eastern side contains lateritic stony and impoverished soils. There are a few stony dryandra ridges and an gentle slope of open Silver Mallet Eucalyptus falcata woodland interspersed with brown mallets. Silver Mallet is a beautiful tree, which can be confused with Salmon Gums. However, Silver Mallet only grows on lateritic gravel soils, and Salmon Gum occurs on clay slopes and valleys.
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on the southern edge there is group of rare Brown Mallet / Red Morrel hybrids.

Species-rich winter-moist kwongan sandplain on a very broad sandy valley on the southern side contains an a wide range of unusual wildflowers, with varying flowering times from August to November. The lower end is mainly dense Eremaea pauciflora shrubland crossed by numerous kangaroo tracks. From September to November I noticed  plants flowering with the best in late October. The easiest way to reach this area is to walk east from the patch of Red Morrel trees on the western side, but it is not easy walking.

as one walks up the valley Eremaea pauciflora gives way to other species such as Calothamnus quadrifidus and Verticordias on yellow sand then Callitris pines.

A triangle on the south eastern edge was illegally cleared, which is very sad as most of it was wonderful kwongan sandy shrubland of little agricultural value. It was replanted some years later in 1996 to wandoos and understory shrubs. 
The wandoos and shrubs have grown well, apart from the deep white sand area. However after 27 years there are still extensive bare areas and very little recruitment of new species from the adjacent uncleared area.
​Our native bush sandy soils are very sensitive, and recover extremely slowly once organic matter, seeds and native microbes has been reduced. 

Rich Road Reserve Location 14733 is a 35 hectare gravel pit reserve which is 30 kilometres east of Wickepin and 63 kilometres east of Narrogin. To get there drive east from Wickepin on the Williams-Kondinin Road and turn north up 10 Mile Road. The remaining 15 kms up to 86 Gate road then right to the Rich Road intersection is gravel road. 

​The whole area is underlain by granite bedrock. Lower silica granite in most of the reserve has produced soils with well-structured orange brown subsoils with frequent large termite mounds ("ant hill country'), and there is a northwest / southeast  band of grey sandy soils from high silica granite.
​Eastern and western sides of the reserve are lateritic soil slopes which adjoin the central waterway.

Areas 1 and 2 are hard setting soils formed on mottled zone below the gravel layer. 1 denotes slight gravelly loam rises with allocasuarina shrubs (Tammar) with proteaceae shrub and some Rock Sheoak vegetation. I found Caladenia falcata orchids in woodland gravel 1 in September.

​Areas 2 are broad depressions supporting Inland Wandoo (Eucalyptus capillosa) trees with sparse ground cover.

​Area 3 is a sandy gravel/ sand over gravel kwongan rise with occasional Eucalyptus albida mallees. This was particularly attractive in late June due to a number of flowering Acacias, Daviesias, and proteaceae plants

Area 4 is the broad valley floor and gentle side slopes with open wandoo woodland dotted with large termite mounds. This is pleasant easy walking country with several orchid species and everlasting in years with good spring rain. 

Area 5 forms the edge of the main trunk valley, and has a range of soil types ranging from wandoo sand over clay to York Gum loam and Salmon gum clay. This area is very weedy and mildly salt affected.

Area 6 on the north east corner is wandoo woodland, which grades to wandoo and shrubs where the soil has more sand or gravel. The loamy pure wandoo patch is choked  with weeds and dead trees, which make it difficult to walk through. This is a clue that this part of the reserve has not carried a fire for decades. Other parts of this area have attractive flowering shrubs. 

Area 7 in the centre-east is reclaimed gravel pit and prickly shrubland with attractive winter-spring flowers.
Area 8 is deep sand over clay soil with open wandoo woodland, which grades to rock sheoak woodland adjoining 86 Gate road.

An earlier Malyalling and Rich Road vegetation survey can be dowloaded here.