These pictures come with an interesting story.

I started using the bike track where I live when lockdown happened this year, and I used it to jog. At first, struggling and sore lungs after 100m, and then eventually being able to run about 3km! I’ve still been regularly jogging along this path, and now cycling along it too!

This path is quite interesting, throughout my jogs along this path, I’ve encountered mystery fruit – a melon/cucumber type fruit from a vine long dead but the fruit still looked fresh. Roadside watermelons too, which looked nice and then disappeared the next day, so I guess someone harvested them. I also started noticing that geraldton wax grows along the path and I took a bit as flowers for home, and other people were doing that too.

Then, three weeks ago, I was on the train (which runs parallel to the bike track) when I saw a couple of people taking photos of a random plant on the path. I’d thought to myself, they look like tourists taking photos of plants! And then thought nothing more of it.

I opted to walk back for whatever reason, and as I was walking, I stopped. Something compelled me to stop, and it was the huge ugly cactus plant. It had always been just an ugly cactus plant with super long death spikes, but now, it was flowering! I realised then, that I was in the same spot as the people I saw earlier – and this is what they were taking photos of.

The flowers were so beautiful that I also took photos with my phone, and understood why the people stopped to take photos of it in the first place.

I then continued to see other people stop and take photos. It seems when something is so pretty, it really does cause people to stop and appreciate it! I found that very cool. However, my phone camera just didn’t do it justice. I needed to do an actual photoshoot with my proper camera.

It just so happened today I had my camera and was travelling along the path, and there was shade, meaning I wouldn’t get harsh sunlight in my photos as much. And at last, I got my photoshoot.

How gorgeous are the flowers? And I love that the bees are so busy too!

It had crossed my mind that maybe I could somehow take a leaf, if I could find away to tackle the death spikes, but I was worried too – even if I could propagate a leaf, would it ever flower? How would it grow? As randomly and ugly as the one here, or could I “train” it to grow a certain way? Would it even be happy?

I think I’d best not touch it. I think the beauty comes from the fact that it usually is just an unassuming ugly mangled spikey death cactus on the side of the path, and so when it flowers, everyone sees it – and that’s the way it needs to be. The wonder would be lost if I took took a leaf home… or would it help recall the memory of today?