Australian Outback flower collection trip

Recently the Balance Essence division, Wandarra Essences, went in search of the elusive Pink Mulla Mulla and Tall Yellow Top. Wandarra is an Australian Aboriginal word that means Good.

Pink Mulla Mulla and Tall Yellow Top only flower in the Australian outback after winter rains.

Our Wandarra team flew to Adelaide and then we drove north for several days into the middle of nowhere, the harsh but beautiful Australian outback.

Here’s the road less travelled that we took. You don’t want the truck to break down out here. 

It’s a very dry  and tough environment.

Red, dusty roads and a cracked and parched earth.

A hard place for most life forms. Scorching hot by day and cold at night. Here’s a reminder to treat this place with respect.

Yet it has a mysteriousness and rugged beauty to it. Anyone that travels here finds it to be an unusual and somewhat spiritual place. It has an almost intoxicating effect . Not sure if it is the desert ions being blown around or the ultra clean air but one definitely feels free and alive out here.

These are the flowers that we were searching for:

 

Tall Yellow Top                             Pink Mulla Mulla  

These are amazing flowers. They lie dormant under the soil all year and then for a 2-3 week period after winter rains they bust out of the desert soil and have this limited but powerful time to germinate and reproduce. I have no idea how they manage to survive for even 2 days in this environment.

Ours was an 8 day trip. I won’t bore you with a day by day description. However for the first three days we couldn’t find a single flower. We were becoming very nervous that we had come all this way and would be returning empty handed.

Then on day 4 we were on a vast private property (where we had permission from the owner) and one of our team, David, suddenly stopped the truck, got out without saying a word and started walking over a small hill and  disappeared up a dry creek bed. We all looked around confused, wondering if he had heat stroke. 

After 5min we realized he wasn’t having returning and we all piled out and started to follow his trail. After a couple of minutes we saw him around a bed standing next to a beautiful crop of Pink Mulla Mulla. 

When we questioned David as to how after three days he knew to suddenly stop at this exact spot (which looked like anywhere else) he said he ‘had no idea’. I just had a ‘feeling’.  David is a practical guy. He is not the superstitious type. Bizarre but not uncommon. Many people we speak to in the flower essence business relay similar stories. It’s as if the flowers ‘want to be found’. Ok I’ll leave it at that – none of us including David could explain it. You can develop your own theory.

We then went on to find dozens of beautiful examples and were careful to only pick about 20% of the flowers from each plant. These plants work hard to survive, we want to make sure they continue to. 

We then went on to find some great examples of Tall Yellow Top. 

We made essences day and night next to each of the plants. We had a full moon while we were there and it was the most amazing sky at night. The air out here is crystal clear. One of the most unpoulluted places on the planet. The milky way just jumps out at you. Makes you feel very, very insignificant. Camping next to these beautiful plants in their harsh surroundings was special.

An amazing trip. We collected the quantity of Tall Yellow Top and Mulla Mulla  Flower Essence to get us through to the next year.

I’ll miss this place. I can’t wait to go back.

Comments

[Katie Hess]

Thank you very much for telling your story! How beautiful.