A walk on an un-named track!

On the afternoon of 14 April we exercised along a little used track off Betka Rd.  It starts just below the road to the tip and emerges opposite the road in to Davis Beach Car Park.  The approximate route is here:

We had done this walk once before - pre-fire - with the Wednesday Walkers and were interested to see how it had fared.  On the previous foray there were a few fallen trees and there were a few more since, and probably as a result of, the fire.   None of them presented any danger nor insuperable obstacles.

A few flowers were evident including a couple of rather decrepid specimens of Schelhammera undulata which I didn't photograph as better specimens would be later in the walk.  Needless to say there weren't!  Here is a Brachyscome spathulata.

 Craspedia variabilis - aka Billy Buttons.

 There was quite a lot of Maidenhair Ferns in some places.

 The second part of the track paralleled a creek line where the Cyathea australis are regrowing very nicely.

 From the page for this species in Flora of Victoria I saw a synonym of Pteridophyta Dominica  mentioning the Australian Plant Names Index (APNI).  On checking APNI I was relieved to see that  Cyathea australia is still the official name.  In fact there are quite a few sysnonyms that have been attempted from time to time!

Quite soon after getting to this part of the walk Frances was walking about 3 metres in front of me, so didn't see the 1.8m long Red-bellied Black Snake which shot across thre track between us.  I suspect it had been exploring a fallen branch, was disturbed by here passage and bolted to its hollow in a burnt out stump.  It looked well fed and was certainly moving well.

There was quite a lot of this white 'stuff' around on the ground.  I am assuming it is a slime mould.

 On the subject of slime, we found some extra evidence thereof .  I feel that is a fair descriptions of the life forms who dumped a load of cans in the bush.  Probably the same idiots who dumped some prunings there.  Can't these bogans work out when the tip is open?