Karloo and Uloola Falls - Royal National Park

  Melbourne cup day a break, because I work for a Melbourne company that is incapable of managing the administration in having different public holidays for staff in different states.

So, I took the troops bushwalking - well I offered, but not many took the offer up, partly due to the casual Cup-related work on offer for the students, partly because of the weather. In the end there were three of us.

I've been running in Royal National Park a few times, but really only on Lady Carrington Drive (I think), so I don't know the walks. This was really the first, probably of many I feel, as there is fantastic public transport access.

40 minutes from Central to Heathcote, and the bush starts 10 minutes from the station. My phone ran out of battery, so there are many fewer
pictures than there might have been. It did in fact

 rain, but not heavily - a classic English drizzle really, for 2 of the 5 hours.

Most of these pictures are from water level - a lot of flowers, most familiar in form if not in name. Although I have an idea that there are a few Australian, as it were, "forms" that are shared around a variety of species, so I'll spare people my guesses.

 
The grasses in the above caught my eye with the very black - I assume seeds - tufts.

A classic rock pool - not raining at the moment this picture was taken.

There were a lot of these - not something I think we've attempted at home.

More rock pool vistas. The path is very well marked, except along the creek banks where there's no real necessity for it as the creek is not difficult to follow.

Cockatoos + house - the top one is actually emerging from a hollow in the tree. This taken from the top of the ridge, about 200 meters into the descent.

These were everywhere, up hill and down dale.

Lots of these trees, but not many with the impressive array of bumps.

I've never seen this fruiting before - amazingly like bunches of grapes. I also saw fruit on some of the casuarinas - also round green globules, but smaller and not bunched as here. I don't think I've seen those before, either - which is amazing when you consider how many casuarinas there are around the Cooks River.

These were also on the upper levels, near the bush-suburbia border. Thee were also an enormous number of gymeas on the ridges, but very quickly vanished going downhill. I was surprised by how few of them had flower spikes - they may have been very young plants. It looked in place like the most recent fire wasn't all that long ago, and I wondered if the gymeas might not be opportunistic post fire.

New plantings

With cat protection ... sadly the neighbourhood is a bit cat-infested at the moment. Obviously better than rats...

This is some kind of (hopefully) dwarf casuarina.

Similar hopes for this banksia - at least it has small leaves.

 This is shooting up - hopefully not a presage of future greatness.

 Looks amazingly like a juniper, but apparently not.

Very small indeed.

 There are a few of these in the neighbourhood, they're very indigenous to the Cooks river. On the evidence of the area, 3 meters should be about tops, but the label, I have to say, is threatening a lot more. Could be chainsaw territory!

Mind you, we've been killing a lot of plants in the last 2-3 years. Who knows how many of hese will survive!

Woronora wildlife

Spring garden, 2015

 Borrowed from #12 (shades of Berewolgal)

 It's the one time of the year that this ornamental is worth the space...

And now, South America

One fo the last vestiges of the garden when we arrived

A long shot - I misjudged the light. About 4 of the trees are neighbourly contributions

Another survivor

West Australian, I think...It's never happy, but it's hung on for about 15 years now

Memories of Asia

Deadman's Creek

 We took the boats out at Deadman's Creek this AM - really the first unambiguous day of spring. It's a tributary of the Georges River, as is the usual spot on the Woronora, so the landscape is similar.

It looks beautiful, and it is, but the roar of traffic is omnipresent. It doesn't have the remote air of the Woronora, although looking at the map there probably isn't much in it.

 It's about 18 months since the verge garden project, and last spring was a bit early to get the full effect on the streetscape, but now the difference is significant. I need to find some "before" shots to ram it home, but there's no denying it looks a bit more welcoming.

I haven't quite managed to group them all sensible below, but these would be the best eight; there's another nine or so, but they need more weeding! I think there are four of us who take the gardens reasonably seriously, in terms of weeding and mulch and design, plus a couple of others who would like to do more but can't through infirmity.

Rain

We were deceived by the technology, which suggested that the clouds would pass us by. Fortunately Liz insisted on wet weather gear (the voice of experience) so it wasn't too bad. Tempted to wait under a bridge, but who knows how long for?

GPS tracking

There were a lot of birds - as usual, I didn't recognise many of them. But I think we saw - a greater cormorant, great egret, a white ibis (of course), a random duck, a royal spoonbill and a little black cormorant.

Not my bird pictures! Not sure if I've posted a link to this guy's pictures before - certainly better than mine.

Coming back from Manly

I took the class to Manly via the Spit Bridge walk. They were a bit startled by the distance involved - 9 km - but I guess I do more walking than most. It's a good introduction to bushwalking, as it's hard to imagine that there's an easier walk with actual bush, plus the views are amazing and as a bonus there's Washaway Beach, which only a local is likely to find and involves climbing down a small cliff for added excitement. Additionally, we had a nude bather for the authentic Sydney experience. (The locals are always tearing down all the signs; the people of Balgowlah deserve a private beach.)

For me though, the highlight is the trip home on the ferry. I took this with my "real" camera, and the auto focus got a bit confused, which YouTube offered to fix - hence the dancing bridge.