Despite fears of a water starved wildflower season, late winter rain has helped to put on a colourful show in WA's Midwest. The abundance of blooms is good news for tourists and the regional economy.
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00:00An organic carpet of colour has transformed the Midwest on a big scale.
00:09The number of flowers in the Geraldton and Mullawa region this year has defied a serious
00:15lack of rain.
00:16In the last two years we've been able to double the amount of orchids we've seen.
00:21The main orchids here are the spider orchids and then we've found in the last couple of
00:26years two different types of spider orchids, as well as leek orchids, the shell orchids,
00:31little green hoods, so it's just amazing.
00:34Flower lovers and farmers were equally worried about low rainfall until the skies opened
00:41in late June.
00:42Farmers were thinking they weren't going to get any crops at all, I was thinking we weren't
00:45going to get any wildflowers.
00:47The timing of the end of season rain created perfect conditions for a rare rainbow reaction.
00:54We didn't even see it coming and we ended up getting 300 mils of rain in one month.
00:58Because the rain came quite late, we now have all the different colours at once, which is
01:03really unusual.
01:04An abundance of colour is drawing so many people to the region this year and businesses
01:10are happy to report that they're being run off their feet, which is good news for tourists
01:16but even better for local business owners.
01:19We're seeing in excess of 200 people a day sometimes.
01:23I was looking back at August 23 and I think the most we got in a day was about 100 people
01:30through our doors.
01:31So we've had people from Canada, New Zealand, Europe, it's really lovely to show them what
01:36WA has to offer.
01:38As the weather dries, the opportunity to see these floral treasures will soon close, but
01:44where there's a will, there's a way.