Down the Creek and up the Gorge

 This post covers a couple of recent outings.  The first was to the Captains Creek Fire Trail.  Here is our route.

One of my objectives was to see if I could add any Acacia species to the post for Wattle Day.  While A. terminalis has finished flowering there were some attractive seed pods.

Taking a good look at this specimen of A. ulicifolia (gorse-leaved wattle) caused me to rethink an identification from the previous day.  There was a lot of this species around on today's track.

This hill - on the route map, it is where the track turns away from the Genoa Rd after about 500m - really is unpleasantly steep.  However the work done by Parks has really sorted out the erosion gullies that were there after the fire.

Tetratheca sp.

From looking at Joy's book - and confirmed by the iNaturalist AI - this is Pomaderris intermedia.  I have put the following images on to iNaturalist.

I did add a note that I didn't have an image of the root system, fully expecting some taxonomist to have made the shape of the roots as THE defining feature.  I don't know why it is but this genus seems to bring out the more anal-retentive attributes of taxonomy: possibly because for 50 weeks of the year they are the most boring looking plants known to science.

We found a couple of species of beans.  This is Platylobium formosum.

INaturalist rated this as Pultenaea sp.  Joy's book shows 2 species in this genus of which I thought P. hispidula was the better match.  The fuzziness is due to poor focusing not hairiness!

A specimen of Ricinocarpos pinifolius (Wedding Bush) had a very few flowers.

Common Bronzewings posed nicely.

Regrowth in a burnt stump.

Bull ant at work.

I tried to get a photo of the only orchids we saw (2 x Brown Beaks at the gate!) but the result was too  fuzzy to waste download on.  I think we were too early for this site.

On 1 September we celebrated Spring by going to Wangarabell.  We were looking for Turquoise Parrots, Diamond Firetails and Yellow-tufted Honeyeaters.  Found none of them.  We started looking before the track to the Gorge and walked down the track to the Gauging Station (double arrows).

The Kennedia rubicunda was in fine flower beside the road.

The view up the Gorge was impressive  ...

... as was the view over the rocks downstream.

We stopped for lunch near Big Flat Creek (adjusted on one sign by painting over the bottom of the B to make Pig Flat Creek).  I had an interesting chat with a local who told me that he had 9 Emus on his place (none visible today) and could nearly always see two Turquoise Parrots as he drove to Mallacoota. (still none visible today).