From the road directory, we found that the Piney Lakes Reserve is at the junction of Murdoch Drive and Leach Highway.  We parked the car at the car park near Leach Highway entrance of the Piney Lakes Reserve.  If you are familiar with this place, you will know what happened as we were looking for the lake.

Well, it was a hot Tuesday afternoon.  The first impression was good because there are solar power street lights.

We were walking in slightly deeper to the park and found another big piece of solar cell.  Thumb up because it is using clean energy which is environmentally friendly.

We saw the signboard showing the dog restrictions rules for Piney Lakes Reserve.

We were in the woodland and we reached a junction.  The following signboard stopped us to use this path.  If there were snakes, do you dare to walk into the park?

As you can see, the signboard is labeled with City of Melville.  It is a Local Government Area in the southern suburbs of Perth.  Piney Lakes Reserve is surrounded by the 3 suburbs under City of Melville (Winthrop, Murdoch and Bateman). …

… I have learned more about suburbs in Perth although sometimes it might be confusing.  Without doing some reading from wikipedia, I thought I had went out of Perth City when I saw “City of -something-” in Perth.  As I know, there are many “cities” in Perth, there is a local government / authority for each “city”, and each city has many suburbs.  Correct me if I am wrong.

We continued to walk into the wood land.

We found some protected plants along the way.

We found many things, but we did not find the lake.  A question started to come into my mind, “Why is there no lake in a place called “Piney Lakes Reserve?”.

I play a joke with SiewPeng’s sister by asking her this question bacause she brought us there and was our tour guide.  :P  She did not know how to answer my questions.  Hope she did not take my words seriously.  Hehe…

What we had found out is that the lake is actually located about 800 meters from where we parked our car.  There is another entrance for car park at Piney Lakes Reserve at Murdoch Drive which is just next to the lake and it would save us a lot of energy walking under the hot sun for almost 1 km if we parked there.

However, we had seen more things along the woodland path.  The longer we walked, the more we saw, and the more photos I have taken.

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We had walked for about half an hour,  but the lake was still out of our visibility.

Another batch of protected plants with red tags.

Suddenly we reached a big piece of grassland.  Hey…  If you are using Windows XP default desktop wallpaper, try to compare to these photos.

When I was there, I felt that I have jumped into the Windows XP wallpaper.  It is not exactly the same but looks similar.

We took some photos and have some drinks (we were really thirsty).  First part of the journey exploring the reserve, I guessed we were the only group of people in the park.

Colin version of Windows XP wallpaper with SiewPeng and Colin (not forgetting our bag at the right corner as well).

Finally we found the lake, after walking across the grassland.

The following pictures were taken somewhere near the lake.  I will show you the lake in the coming post.

Not far away, there is a playground.

Stove for BBQ or cooking.

Do you know what this structure is built for?  They are the public toilets.

At the place I saw this board, the car park was just next to us but our car was not parked here.  We have no choice but walked for another 800 meters or 1 km back to our car.

Besides tiredness and hot, it was a great experience and we have had a happy time there.  While walking back to our car, I was far behind SiewPeng and her sister because I was busy taking photographs.  SiewPeng has lost her balance on the little hill at the grassland.  She fell down and her sister laughed at her.  I took their photos from far away and will keep these photos for ourselves.  :D