I had to go to Perth yesterday, some three weeks after the bushfire closed the two main highways between Perth and Bunbury. I went up via Forrest Highway and came home via South West Highway. On each highway, there was a stretch of about 12 km where the fire damage was extensive. Coming home on South West Highway, I was amazed at how close the fire came to wiping out Waroona too — the hills behind the town were all burnt, and the fire damage to the southern outskirts of town was devastating. There’s still no access to Yarloop (not that I would’ve wanted to drive through there anyway), but most of the houses on the highway just outside the town are ruined. How Hamel didn’t get wiped off the map too, is beyond me.
We had quite a bit of rain about a week after the fires, so parts are starting to ‘green up’ already, and we had more rain yesterday, which is why the skies aren’t the blue you’d expect from an Australian summer!
Forrest Highway
South West Highway
