Reedy Lake - Moolap Station Road

The line of trees marks Moolap Station Road, on the North side of Reedy Lake. Previous pictures have been from the South, the Barwon River side. The flora-scape, if I may be so bold, is a little different. Although there are reeds to the right. Afraid the pictures are a bit unfocused.

It turns out to be possible to walk into the lake - two months ago this would have been continuous water. Mind you, it's not as dry as it might look at first glance. This was taken about 20 meters from the birds (I was upwind) and if the ground had been firmer I could have got closer. I guess that's an ibis, but there were a couple of different species also present. Without binoculars though, they'll remain a mystery.

More of the path in. Not easy to find on the way out! Lignum in the mid-ground. I don't know what about the soil favours the lignum over reeds; judging from the south side, reeds will out compete the lignum if they can get a toehold, but it must be something pretty specific because here the lignum is in dry soil while in the picture above with the birds you can also see lignum in thick wet mud.

On one side of the channel, lignum; on the other, reeds, albeit pretty young reeds. I don't know if the channel is natural or human. There's no sign of recent machinery, but maybe once dug it would survive for a long time. There are lots of interesting variations to the surface, which, being a lake bottom at least half the year, I would have expected to be more uniform.

The footsteps are getting deeper. This was the point from which I took the bird pictures - it's not too hard to see why I was nervous about going out further. It was, as you can see from the shadow and the sky, a beautiful afternoon.

Lignum proving its versatility.

At least two varieties of reed. Plus Moolap or Leopold in the background.













White birds, and black/brown birds, and piebald birds.

These are not mangrove roots, but they look a bit like them. I assume they're one of the reed varieties waiting to recover. I can't help thinking as I'm walking here that it would be a fantastic place to run.


The mud holds footprints pretty well - I saw a few dogs, sheep, lots and lots of birds, and what I assume was a kangaroo - sets of two narrow parallel indentations about a metre apart. No dragging tail though, and I didn't think it was particularly kangaroo country.