Lane Poole Reserve - Dwellingup

We left camp at Herron Point pretty early on Sunday the 2nd of November & headed to our next camp at Lane Poole Reserve near Dwellingup. On the way we went through the town Pinjarra & were suprised to find a Coles, so we stopped in to grab a few things. It was then about 10am when we arrived at Lane Poole Reserve which is run by the department of parks & wildlife. It has a online booking system for most of its campgrounds & we had booked into Charlie's Flat for 3 nights at $7.50 per adult per night. There are 5-6 campgrounds some are bookable others aren't. It is very popular on weekends as its only 100km from Perth.

Home for 4 nights & we had no neighbours the whole time

The campsites themselves are pretty small, but we had booked a camper trailer site, but we only just fit in length wise. It was a lovely campground though set on the Murray River amongst the forest. The reserve is a conservation area for the northern Jarrah forests & has fantastic access to the river for fishing, swimming & canoeing. There is also remnants of the past timber industry especially at Nanga Mill that is now a campground. 

In the reserve

Just a lovely spot, so we decided to head back to the park entrance to see if we could extend our stay by another night to take us to 4 nights total, while we were out we also cut some firewood, as we were allowed to have a campfire again, yeah. So we did lots of camp cooking that you will see on the blog soon, hopefully you have already seen our campfire cheese recipe here.

As we lit the fire that afternoon & were sitting around relaxing our first family of blue splendid wrens turned up. They are so beautiful & would continue to delight us for the next 4 days as I tried to get photos of them, which is not easy as they flit around. They were hoping under our chairs, on the tables & all over the wood pile. A red shouldered wren also turned up as well & beautiful black cockatoos (Carnabys cockatoos with white under their tails & white cheeks) & also the inquisitive grey fantails & the ever present ringnecks. 

As the camp was surrounded with trees we weren't sure how we would go with our solar panels, so the next day we decided to go for drive to get the fridges off the trailer batteries for a while. It was also quiet cool, cloudy & rainy. It continued to be like this for the whole time we stayed unfortunately. We went to check out some more of the park & found a great fishing spot. There was a duck there that followed us around he had obviously been fed before, so as we made a coffee for morning tea, he had to have a piece of bread as well!  It was a lovely day out & our surroundings were completely different to anything we have seen or camped in so far on the trip. 

Fishing spot

Morning tea spot

The next day we went for a drive to have a look at more of the park, as well as the towns nearby & did a loop through Waroona, Pinjarra, North Dandalup & Dwellingup. A lovely area full of wonderful farming country with fat cattle & sheep & lots of forestry as well. That afternoon I was starting to get a sore throat & felt like I was coming down with something. 

The next day I felt worse & we zipped back into Pinjarra to get some cold & flu tablets. Not fun. The flu while camping is a nightmare. Me coughing all night wasn't great for either of our sleep each night. 

Can you spot the old log bridge?

Cycad

Grass tree

Typical forest

One of my favourite flower colours for the whole trip

Other than getting sick, we had a great time at Lane Poole Reserve & we can see why it is so popular. A very nice spot for a few days. Our campground had pit toilets but no other facilities. There was a picnic table & firepit in each site as well. They are developing a flash new caravan campground on the other side of the reserve, hopefully they will leave lots of bush camps as well. The roads in the park are pretty standard dirt roads, but very dusty & windy in parts. The plants & wildlife are really great & different in the reserve as well. Next up it was out of the bush & off to Bunbury, more in our next post.