We drive the Northern Loop from Tenindewa to the edge of Noongar Country—the Greenough River, which we cross—then back in again, through yellow sandy land, and darker soil stretches. There are wildflowers everywhere of all colours—it is like driving through a post-impressionist’s landscape painting, Cézanne maybe. Eventually we arrive at a waterfall with strange moon-like rocks north of Mullewa. We continue east to Pindar then north again to find the wreath flowers by the roadside, growing here on this one piece of graded road-shoulder. I remember the overall form of the wreaths, but didn’t really recall the flowers themselves. This time I look a bit more closely, and find they turn from yellow to red—from inside to out, from lower to higher—in a kind of flowing spring of colour—a flowing flowering of form.

Coal Seam National Park colour explosions after a wet winter: already many flowers seen on the way from Sandy Cape—wildflowers yellow and purple and white (smokebush) and red and orange and blue—through farmland to Mingenew. At Coal Seam there are white and yellow pompoms, blue flowers, red flame candles, black-eyed daisies, red rocks, noisy birds, a small stream, coal shafts. At the top of the walk there are views, like a colourful, low-down Arizona canyonland. The flowers are knee-deep in places.

We’re driving north to see some wildflowers, so we stop in at Yanchep National Park, and I can’t drive past a sign that says ‘Koalas’. I have never seen one. And one is all there is, sleeping, docile, stirring slightly in a eucalypt, not too far above eye level on a little walkway they have made. He is a light grey; all alone, it seems. And bigger than I thought.