Day 86

Today was another wet day so we decided to travel along the Swan Valley Tourist Drive, 31-kilometre-long from Guildford to West Swan, Belhus, and Midland, we then joined the John Forrest Tourist Drive, through John Forrest National Park in the eastern hills of Perth. The 10 km drive travels around the national park along Park Road. The 1,580 hectares of land in John Forrest National Park is almost entirely undeveloped, with the tourist drive itself restricted to the southern section of the park, south of Jane Brook.

The Swan Valley is home to historic vineyards first planted in 1829 alongside modern craft breweries. It features scenic riverside spots, walking trails, and family spaces such as Bells Rapids.









We then continued to the Darling Range Tourist Drive, a historic route through the Darling Range near Mundaring. The 25-kilometre-long route main attraction is the historic Mundaring Weir, a component of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, which has been described as "Western Australia's greatest engineering feat".

The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, paralleling the southwest coast east of Perth for 200 miles (320 km) from the Moore River (north) to Bridgetown (south). Average heights range from 800 to 1,000 feet (250 to 300 m), and the highest peaks are Mounts Cooke (1,910 feet), Solus (1,827 feet), and Dale (1,781 feet). The scarp is dissected by ravines cut by rivers flowing to the sea. Some of these, including the Helena (site of Mundaring Weir), the Canning, and the Collie, are dammed to provide irrigation and domestic water. The region, which embraces John Forrest National Park (near Perth), produces wood distillation products and charcoal from eucalyptus, as well as pig iron and bauxite. It was named after the Governor of New South Wales, Lieutenant-General Ralph Darling.

















Next we drove south to the Heritage Country Tourist Drive, 44km long - is a scenic and historic route through Bedfordale and Roleystone. After heading east out of Armadale, the route travels in a loop to Churchman Brook Reservoir and Canning Dam.