Avon Valley National Park, 1-hour drive from Perth, a great place for hiking and camping. We found it not as popular and busy as some other national parks closer to the city. With no sealed roads, it is a bushland area, spanning 4800ha.
Avon Valley National Park is a place to go camping. It has 5 camp grounds with basic facilities, which include picnic tables (some with shade), fire pits and toilets. Camping fees apply. As we haven’t camped there, we can’t provide more information but you can find it on this website.
There are no defined hiking trails but, nonetheless, it is a great place for nature lovers. It has a few species of eucalyptus and grass trees (Xanthorrhoea) and is one of the best places to see wildflowers.
Even in November (which is not the prime month for seeing wildflowers) we managed to spot a few of them.
Wildflowers
Rhodanthe chlorocephala Pink white everlasting (above).
Located 33km north of Mingenew, Coalseam Conservation Park is best known for its stunning display of wildflowers, especially everlastings, which are best seen in August-September. Even though we missed the prime time of the wildflowers blooming by about 3 weeks, due to work and study commitments, we still enjoyed what was left of them. In fact, there is a certain beauty in the dried everlastings – maturity combined with beauty of gold.
Coalseam is also rich in history and geology. It is the site of the first mined coal deposit in Western Australia, and exposed bands of coal seams can still be seen. The coal there turned out to be of not high enough quality to mine profitably, so the mines was eventually closed and the reserve became Coalseam Conservation Park. The part of the reverse near Johnson Shaft was turned into Miner’s camp ground.
Old Mine Shaft site
Camping at Coalseam Conservation Park
There are two campgrounds at Coalseam Conservation Park. We stayed at Miner’s camp which was very popular when we arrived on 25 of September, just at the beginning of school holidays. We were lucky to get one last out of 25 spots at around 4pm in the afternoon. Our lovely and friendly camphosts collected our money ($11 per adult, $3 per child – prices back in 2021), car registration and other necessary information. For those fees we enjoyed a spacious site to park our 4WD and caravan, beautiful views all around, clean drop toilet, company of the neighbours and communal fire every night. I would imagine this place looks absolutely stunning during the peak of wildflower season but it still looked very pretty even at the end of the season.
Miner’s Camp at Coalseam Conservation Park
Not just the wildflowers
With 3 days to stay at Coalseam, we had plenty of time to go for numerous walks around. Going for a walk is not only a relaxation, exercise and leisure, it is also an opportunity to explore the area and see the beauty and extraordinary around us…. like the beautiful tapestry of the spider web .
Tapestry of the spider web
Kids found their own entertainments during our stay at Coalseam. One of the new fun games they discovered was building and shooting paper rockets. Some of the rockets flew as high as 60 meters up! What a thrill! Thank you, Daddy Brian for teaching the kids this fun activity.
Can you fly a paper rocket 60 meters high?
Kids also played with freesbie and….. a shoe! Can you spot a flying shoe? 🙂
Have you found where the shoe has gone? 🙂
The night skies in the outback are dark and full of stars. It is such a relaxing and rewarding experience to look at the Milky Way and spot occasional stars falling.
Night skies at Coalseam Conservation Park
Lookouts and walking trails in Coalseam
There are a few other things to see and places to visit apart from wildflowers in Coalseam Conservation park. 2km away from the Miner’s camp, there is Irwin River Lookout. An easy 500 meter loop walk to the cliff edge provides spectacular views over the Irwin River.
Irwin River Lookout
Below it (you would need to drive back and around to reach it) is River Bend, where you can view the banded layers in the cliff above. It is a nice picnic spot with bbq and toilets.
River Bend
Seeing a snake is always a little bit terrifying but also exciting! After all, it is an opportunity to see it in their natural environment. We saw this Stimson’s python (also known as Children’s python) on our way to Irwin River Lookout, about 2km away from the Miner’s campground.
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