Pambula Walks

 This is a bit of a step from Mallacoota, but have included it in this blog as we did it from Mallacoota, and will probably do it again from there.  Also I want some of my early commentary to be seen by people from, or visiting, Mallacoota.

We had gone to Merimbula to get a few things that I needed and to put some additional value into the trip Frances found a couple of walks in a brochure put out by a consortium of Councils (East Gippsland; Bega Valley and Eurobodalla).  Where we went is marked by the two orange pins.

For the first of these we actually meant to go to Wolumla Peak, but the stupid brochure didn't say "go 14km along Wolumla Peak Rd" so we started walking at the river crossing.  I have complained to Bega Valley Shire about thus

There were lots of butterflies around as we walked up the road.  The iNaturalist AI rates this, one of the common species on the day, as a Wonder Brown.

The underlying rock appeared to be sandstone.

The slope running down to the Pambula River was both steep and thickly vegetated.

Beside the track again, were many ferns.  the AI rated this as a Shiny Fan Fern but a local expert has said S. lobatus (Spreading Fan Fern).

We returned to the car and headed off towards the Goodenia Rainforest walk.  Learning all the time, I put that into the GPS before setting off, finding that it was 8 km up the "road".  The road was pretty rough, and after about 4km pretty narrow.  However when we arrived at the parking area we found a Mazda 3 parked there!  The walk was mainly out and back so we met the owners of this as we went down (and caught them up on the drive out: they were sensibly going very slowly to protect the car.)  To complete comments on visitation we met yet another group going down as we came back up.

This unusual looking insect was crawling around on the steps.  I suspect it has only recently emerged from a pupal case.  I think it is genus Amata (Tiger Moths).  Nope, it turns out to be Oenosandra boisduvalii, Boisduval's Autumn Moth.

A collection of epiphytes.

The track was pretty steep.  Frances discovered that the area at the side of the step had a much lower vertical step as soil had washed down.  This made the walk back up much easier.

An occasional spiky vine across the track kept one alert!

A long flight of steps: quite new, so the soil-wash effect was not yet evident.

More epiphytes!

Vines are a major element of the biomass of rainforests.

A babbling brook in the bottom of the gully we were descending.

Ferns and moss.

This fruit looked familiar and so it was: Pittosporum revolutum.

At the bottom of the walk the track does a small loop though the forest.

Coming back up, one's attention was occasionally grabbed by the height of the trees.

A very nice walk and well worth the bumpy drive.

The picnic area at the car park was pretty well set out with tables etc and graced with loud calls by the Superb Lyrebirds which are starting to get in tune for breeding.  The recording was not great but the shaking tail feathers can be heard at the end.

Walking Captains Creek and related Tracks

 We have been doing a little training for some longer walks.  (Those with a long memory will remember a similar plan (possibly a Cunning Plan) in the past.  One of the longer walks we had in mind was a car shuffle from the Captains Creek Fire Trail to Bucklands.  For some reason we had this pegged as 12 km: in fact it was only 9km, which was a pleasant surprise as we worked it out.

I did three ebird checklists along the way, so have three maps covering the various stages of the walk.  This first one starts at Genoa Rd and goes down the fire trail to Captain's Creek Jetty.

This is looking back down the very steep section after 0.5 km.  Given the amount of rain we have had this year  the rebuilt track is holding up very well.

There is a bit more erosion  on the far side of the hill.

In this part of the walk the main vegetative interest was seed pods - these are Acacia suavolens.  There will not be a lack of regrowth when another fire goes through here.

There were a few chewed-up areas on the track, of which this was probably the worst.

More seed pods: I am pretty sure these are Dodonea triquetra.

A lone flower of Kennedia rubicunda.  This species isn't as common this year as last, and is probably less evident inland than on the coast.

We saw more trigger plants (Stylidium graminifolium) than we have noticed recently.

This is clearly a Leptospermum, and I would have expected it to be called something like L. ericifolium.  However I think it is actually L. continentale - which does seem to have been a rename from, or at least confused with, L. juniperinum.

Dampiera stricta: always a pretty plant.

Did I mention the amount of rain we have had?   It was rather surprising that this was the only set of puddles we cam across.

We didn't actually go to the Jetty but continued on towards Bucklands.

There were a few daisies around, but I haven't been able to identify them to species so far.

This section was somewhat interesting last time we did the walk, as the bridges had been burnt out and we had to use fallen trees to cross the watercourses.  Although the bridges have been replaced the back-ups are still in place.

Looking downstream.

Another side-creek, with nice reflections.

Fungus on a tree.

We only saw one orchid (Dipodium sp.) in the whole walk!

A large (for this area) Wahlenbergia sp.

The walking track is a lot narrower than the fire trail.

A gully with tree ferns.

A view across the mouth of Captains Creek to the repainted Jetty.

A new taxon: Exocarpos cupressiformis akwesane.  The subspecies name being that of a Mohawk Reservation spanning the border between New York State, Ontario and Quebec

The third leg was along the banks of the Narrows.

This was the first stretch where we found Bursaria spinosa (Blackthorn - grab a branch to verify the vernacular name).

A subsequent very tall shrub of the same species.

Melaleuca armillaris.

 A view of the Narrows.

Clematis aristata - most specimens, of which there were a lot, have gone to seed looking like Old Man's Beard.

We felt surprisingly spritely at the end of the walk.

A little out of area

This covers an outing of the Bairnsdale Field Naturalists Society which we attended on 20 November.  We stopped three times, with the second being added as it looked interesting when most of the group drove past on the way from Bairnsdale to Drummer.  It was nice to have the first stop relatively close to home!

A look into the Thurra River.

A fern - or possibly 2 ferns.  

Various epiphytes.

I was told this is a Tanglefoot orchid (Plectorrhiza tridentata).  I had thought this would be a large plant but was in fact tiny.  (As an aside it is possibly surprising how often that is the case: another one comes next.)

This is the Butterfly Orchid (Sarcochilus australis).  I had mentally confused this with the much larger S. falcatus - Orange Blossom Orchid - which is only known from one site in Victoria (not near where we were).  However I eventually picked out the small flowers hanging down in rainforest.

Zooming in helps a bit!

White Elderberry (Sambucus gaudichaudiana) was common at Drummer.

The scene at Reedy Creek, the add on stop.

This one is a worry.  It is very common here, growing in swathes along the roadside.  We thought it looked like Leucochrysum sp. and iNaturalist AI agrees, but Flora of Victoria only offers 3 species, none of them anywhere close to this site!  Let us see what the humans have to say.  A human has responded, suggesting Chrysocephalum baxteri, which agrees with a comment about 'Chrysocephalum' made in the field.  (In our experience ' chryso' usually means something yellow - Chryso is Greek for golden - so we had rejected that.  We were wrong!)

A very small Gompholobium and I strongly suspect it is G. glabratum.  The text in Flora of Voctoria describes the range as "only from the upper Genoa River and the upper Cann River Valley" but there is a dot on the map almost exactly where we found this.

Lots of a showy Hakea growing on the edge of a swamp.  It doesn't look like the usual species around here (H. decurrens) but does match quite well to H. teretifolia, although I didn't find any of the dagger-shaped fruit.  Let's see what the humans on iNaturalist have to say.

A pretty little white flower (with bonus raindrop) is identified on iNaturalist as Libertia pulchella  (Pretty Grass-flag).  As its vernacular name suggests it is a member of the Iris family.

This is definitely a Prostanthera (aka Mint-bush) and I think P. lasianthos (a member of the group gave the species name but I didn't write it down).

Cyathea australis.  One specimen looked a bit odd, but it was decided eventually not to be C. leichardtiana.

A collection of fungi!

An expert on iNaturalist has identified this as Schizophyllum commune a fine specimen too.

A blown down nest with eggs, and the eggs being invaded by fungi.

The consensus on iNaturalist appears to be Narrow-brand Grass Dart (Ocybadistes flavovittata).

These burrows were all over the Drummer area.  It appeared to be where the animal had been digging for truffles.  From referring to "Tracks Scats and other traces" it seems unlikely to be Bandicoot (the hole doesn't end in a point) so is thus most likely to be a Potoroo.

Some images of infrastructure.  The first is Drummer.

The others are Mackenzie Rainforest.  There was debris in the vegetation suggesting that in floods earlier in the year the water would have been several feet above the walkways.  A large (>1m diameter) tree had fallen across one of the walkways but that had been removed and the walkway rebuilt.