The Spectacles (Beeliar Regional Park)
The Spectacles is located within the City of Kwinana. The wetland covers about 3.7 square kilometers. It is named "The Spectacles" because the two lakes, connected by a drain, resemble a pair spectacles from aerial views. The Aboriginal Heritage Trail loops around the larger lake.
The Biara Boardwalk trail intersects the Aboriginal Heritage Trail and is the route we chose for our walk today.
The trail leads to a boardwalk surrounded by paperbark trees.
The boardwalk is 130 meters long which goes to the centre of a paperbark forest and ends at the bird hide.
Although the summer and autumn drought conditions severely depleted water levels around the boardwalk, it felt like we were walking through a bayou in the deep south U.S.A.
The video clip below records the final few meters to the Bird Hide at the end of the boardwalk.
When we first entered the bird hide, a grey heron flew in from the right, skimmed the water's surface, then landed somewhere out of view to the left of the bird hide. We weren't set up yet to take photos and unfortunately, didn't see him again.
A curious black swan heard us and decided to come and see what we were up to.
Lucky for us the swan stayed around a few minutes to have his picture taken.
Having satisfied his curiosity, he left; then we left.