Twenty kilometres south of the Stirling Range, the Porongorup Range could hardly be more different. It is to the south closer to the coast and picks up a lot more rainfall. The Porongorup Range is composed of giant granite boulders, with the highest peak 670 m above sea level.
The Porongorup Range is contained within a relatively small national park – the Porongorup National Park – of c. 2,600 ha.
This was our first encounter with the tall eucalypt forests of that small area of high rainfall by the south coast of Western Australia. In the Porongorup Range these were dominated by smooth-barked Karri (Eucalyptus diversicolor) trees perhaps 40 m tall.
With the change to tall forests came a marked change in the understorey, from a predominance of the protea family (Proteaceae – there were still some) in the heaths to peas (Leguminosae [Fabaceae]); the Porongorup Range was a blaze of peas in purple-pink and yellow when we visited in mid-October.