I awoke at 5.00m to the sound of a beautiful dawn chorus provided mainly by the small cobalt blue male wrens shown in the photo taken later in the day on the trail of the Mandurah Giants.
Bob & Lesley live in a Royal Australian Airforce retirement village close to the town of Mandurah about an hour's drive from Perth and close to the Peel-Harbour Estuary in the south of Western Australia if you want to look it up in an Atlas.
We began with a breakfast of Bacon and poached eggs on sourdough bread in a café on the foreshore of Mandurah before visiting the Visitor Centre to begin our adventure for the next two days to search out the 6 Giants of Mandurah! So what are they I hear you ask.
The easiest way is to refer you to this website: https://www.giantsofmandurah.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Giants-Visitors-Guide-Map-Digital.pdf
This will explain more the history and geography of Mandjoogoordap (Mandurah). This name derives from Aborigine culture. With an estuary twice the size of Sydney Harbour Mandjoogoordap is one of Australia's most spectacular recreational areas and settings for the Thomas Dambo Giants Trail.
"The GIANTS OF MANDURAH is a free outdoor exhibition celebrating the extraordinary beauty and importance of protecting our natural world, including Mandurah's globally significant Ramsar-listed wetlands, unique waterways, bushland and wildlife."
Created by Thomas Dambo a world leading recycle artist based in Copenhagen, Denmark, his artwork celebrates "the diversity, beauty and importance of the natural world, with his larger-than-life sculptures" constructed from recycled local materials – which in the case of the Giants of Mandurah is wood.
There are 6 Giants to find and locate around this huge estuary. You are provided with the location of five of the giants and by then photographing the location codes at each site you can then revisit the Visitor Information Centre back in Mandurah to find the secret location of the last Giant.
We cheated and used Google to find the last secret location but visited 4 of the giants on Tuesday and the final two yesterday Wednesday.
So enjoy the photo of the wren and I will post soon on the fist of the Giants that we discovered deep in the wetlands – Little Lui.
