Sometimes you just forget that there are pretty cool things right in your backyard. In Spring, the Angelsea Heath is one of them. Within fifteen minutes from our house, we're smack bang in a huge forest, complete with kangaroos, wildflowers, grass trees, mud tracks, walking trails and solitude - that is, if the dirt bikers aren't out on the weekend, but hey, who can begrudge people having fun in the relative wilderness that stretches over 7,000 hectares?

If ever we're feeling a little restless on the weekend, we go for a drive in dear Buttercup. Every drive in this nearly fifty year old car is an adventure. This time we took the boards, though the wind picked up and the surf wasn't great. We ended up having more fun exploring tracks and observing the many varieties of wildflowers that grace the area at this time of the year.

One of our favourites is the grass tree, formally known as 'black boys'. Xanthorrhoea are iconic in the Australian bush, a perennial plant with very groovy tall flowering spikes. They can be stimulated to grow with fire and attract insects and birds alike. We have two in our garden, but they take forever to grow. One of ours just flowered recently which was amazing to see after ten years of being in the ground! We'd transplanted it so it must have liked the better spot we put it in.

Sadly I didn't get a lot of flower shots as I only had my phone rather than my good camera, and the slight breeze was making the flowers tremble and shake, resulting in a few blurry pictures. There were all kinds of colours and native orchids as well. It astounds me that there can be so much colour up close, but when you look from a distance it looks monoform, one large slab of green with the blue ocean in the far distance.

One new track took us up to the lookout which allows a view of the old decommissioned Alcoa powerplant. They have cleaned it up now, but they are still debating about what to do with it. The Eden Project from the UK were proposing to turn the site into a similiar kind of thing, which would have been absolutely amazing, but there was too much local resistance to it and concern the local infrastructure couldn't take it in an already tourist area. I think it would have been amazing - if you've been to the Eden Project in the UK, you'd know what I mean. Truly visionary. On another note, I loved this leaf shaped seat, and would love to make one overlooking our small lake in our garden. Note to self.

What's in your backyard? Is it wildflower season or is the snow coming in? Have you been on any local travel adventures lately?

'Have You Been Here' is a travel community on HIVE. You can download their app here and connect with other travellers. You can find where in the world other HIVE bloggers have travelled by exploring the map on your desktop at Pinmapple here too. Drop a pin anywhere on the map to generate a code to add to your blog so that others might find it.

With Love,

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