Errinundra gets visited

This covers an outing with our friends Peter and Deborah to Errinundra National Park which none of us had ever visited before  I had been told by a number of others that the big trees here were magnificent.  [Spoiler alert: They were.]

The first challenge was how to get there.  The touring maps we had of the area talked about rough, rocky and slippery roads which gave a little food for thought and consulting Google Maps suggested going to Bombala and coming down!  All bitumen and taking 2:46 and covering 218 km.  Trying again sent us through Orbost taking 3:22 and 237 km  Forcing it to go the most direct route via Club Terrace gave 3:07 and 168 km.  We didn't fancy the Bombala option as we have all driven the Imlay many times and decided the approach was to go through Club Terrace and return via Orbost.

Here is a mud map.  I adjusted the offering by Google Maps since Errinundra Rd cuts a corner  going by point 1 (the Bonang River Picnic Area).  We wanted to end up at 2 the Old Growth Walk.

Most of the area from Club Terrace had been burnt with, as usual, tree ferns very evident in the regrowth.

I'm not sure if the sign was damaged by the recent fires or anno domini.  When looked at I think it reads "Regrowth from 1939 Fire"

This is the view from the Ocean Lookout, on a side road about 5km from Mt Morris.  I couldn't locate this precisely on Google Earth but I think it's about 45 km to the ocean.

The rock on the inland side of the road at the lookout was badly burnt.  It was also pretty wet, suggesting there is a spring somewhere up there.

This was one of the few flowering trees/shrubs we saw during the day.  It was at the Bonang River Picnic Area (point 1 above).

Some more typical (very) large trees at that point.

We did a little birding here, starting a new eBird Hotspot.  The highlight was 2 Black-faced Monarchs.  Here is the checklist.

A rather informative sign at the start of the walk.  It would have been interesting to see a vertical profile: possibly a better word would be worrying!

A very helpful sign.  Rather than the usual BS "Area closed for Public Safety" and close off a 5km radius, they actually describe the problem and leave the 99% of the walk that is unaffected open.  I hope this means a change of policy by Parks Vic.

A nice wooden seat.  I presume they carted it in in pieces and assembled it on site.

Did someone mention falling branches?

More tall timber

A Gippsland Waratah (Telopea oreades).  In Victoria restricted to this area and mainly in the higher areas for which, at about 780 m AMSL, this area certainly qualifies.

A root ball of impressive diameter (but, of more relevance to maintaining a vertical position, limited ground penetration).

Berries of Dianella sp.

This is where the angle of dangle started to get interesting as one passed down through a (presumably natural) arch of tree ferns.

At first glance this sign appeared to be absolute kitsch.  But the words make the point that the larger trees in this area were growing before Leonardo painted the Moaning Lizzie.

More tree ferns!

The base of one the largest Shining Gums.  I suspect a fire has burnt out the cave in which Pete is standing.  See photo of root ball above and think about this.

Why do I hate taxonomists?  As we drove along Deb had consulted Dr Google to get the Latin for Shining Gum and seemed to get two offerings: Eucalyptus denticulata and E. nitens.  The entry for the former in Flora of Victoria includes:

Eucalyptus denticulata and E. nitens are closely related and morphological divergence between them is only partial in many populations in the eastern highlands. The peculiar tip to the buds in E. denticulata can be seen as well in the unrelated E. sturgissiana, a mallee of restricted distribution on sandstone in southern New South Wales.

In plain language there is no morphological difference between the two species!  The entry for E. nitens notes that the two species have only recently been splut (sic) presumably someone found a difference of unknown significance between the genomes.

We did another checklist of birds (the 7th for the site).  The highlight was the 3 Rufous Fantails.  A small (but good, really) issue was that some calls (eg White-winged Chough) coming from ground level were possibly mimicry by Superb Lyrebirds.  So they got omitted.

Getting back to the route choice, I think coming from Mallacoota the route via Club Terrace is the only game in town.  Apart from the boredom factor the extra 50km going through Bombala is ungood, and road through Orbost is little better than the simple route: there is much more bitumen coming via Orbost but the road is so twisty it's difficult to go much faster and it is 70 km longer.  We guessed it took at least 30 minutes longer coming back than going up.  A point to note is that on both roads we encountered an oncoming muppet cutting corners in a very unsafe way.  Although both cars were black, bogan-decor Hilux we suspect they were different Muppets: perhaps Bert one way and Ernie the other?