A Spring walk at Mulligan's Flat - November 2010

I’m not going to start with the excuses for why its taken so long to get this next entry in, I’m just going to jump on in and hope that I can get a roll on!

I haven’t done a lot of walking recently and have done even less work on all the photos I’ve taken over the past months so this entry delves further back into 2010. It won’t be a long entry either – mainly because my memory has faded somewhat and also I didn’t take a lot of great photos that day.

I do remember one thing about this particular November day in 2010 however – it was hot. It was the kind of spring day that tells you summer is just around the corner. Not hot enough to make you wilt after climbing a steep hill, but enough to make you shed your jumper, and enough to singe fair skin - which I have in abundance!

Joining me on the walk this day was my usual accomplice in such endeavours, my beloved brother par excellence! (Hmm how do the French write that? it was intended to sound smooth and sophisticated but when I read it back it rendered in my mind as if spoken in a broad Aussie accent!) Also with me on the walk was my partner (in life), my big sister, my gorgeous niece and two teenage nephews (how their parents managed to get them to come is quite beyond me, my children stopped coming on walks with me as soon as they were too big to drag out the door!).

My brother and niece sharing a laugh on the walk

The location for the walk was Mulligan’s Flat, said to have the largest single patch of Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora) - Red Gum (Eucalyptus blakelyi) Grassy Woodland left in Australia. If this is true it is a sad thing. It doesn’t seem particularly big (to me), is fairly degraded in places, and has certainly seen a reasonable amount of clearing in the past.

My beautiful niece resting in the shade

The walk itself wandered through grassland and woodland alive with spring flowers. Weeds were present in fairly large numbers as well, a hangover from the days when the land was used for grazing. An old shearing shed still stands testament to the previous uses of the land on the site, along with some dams. The latter certainly provides for some wildlife and in particular birds, the site being known for many species, some quite rare. Personally, I’m not so good with birds much as I like them. They move way to fast for my less than perfect vision to keep up with and as for photographing them, well I’m not sure I have the patience though I do try from time to time.

Ten or so years ago, I visited this site when I was working at the ANU (we were collecting Yellow Box leaves for koala feeding experiments). We left civilisation and bumped along a dirt road for some time before reaching the small dirt carpark. These days you park in a tarred car-park just off a suburban street and the rows of houses seem to accompany you for much of the early part of the track, hemming a lot of the western side of the reserve.

Velleia paradoxa (Spur Velleia)

You do eventually manage to lose the houses and immerse yourself a little more in the nature experience. Most memorable on the walk were the drifts of orange pea flowers (I’m sorry not to have identified these at the time but if I visit this year I may edit their name in here) amongst the regenerating woodland. Also memorable were the large patches of Velleia paradoxa (spur Velleia) and Wahlenbergia species (Bluebells).

Large patch of Velleia paradoxa (Spur Velleia) and Wahlenbergia (Bluebells)

Nearing the end of the walk we came across a Common Bearded Dragon (Pogona barbata) warming itself on the stony road. It seemed not at all perturbed by the attention it received and happily sat motionless for all the photos you could possibly want to take!

Common Bearded Dragon (Pogona barbata)

All in all an enjoyable walk made all the more enjoyable with the most excellent company. I do hope my niece forgives me for putting her photo up here!

Square Rock Walk - January 2011

Now that I’ve started getting my flickr together I will start to post some of the walks that I did earlier in the year. I’ll also post up a few from last year, before getting on to doing some more walks and putting them up more or less as they happen.

One sunny day in late January I, and my most beloved collaborator (aka. carrier of extra camera equipment and brother extraordinaire), took it upon our (slightly unfit) selves to undertake the Square Rock walk in Namadgi National Park (Australian Capital Territory).

My (mostly) willing accomplice (I promised him I would post his photo despite his protestations)

It was a beautiful day and we walked from the Smokers Gap Carpark along the narrow forest trail, complete with shrubs glistening with morning dew, until we crossed the road and headed uphill. There were many flowers to be seen and also many skinks darting this way and that in an effort to escape the rather large person (I’ll only speak for myself here or I may lose a camera gear carrier) blundering along the track.

Spencers Skink (Pseudemoia spenceri)

Some way into the walk (~2.5km), the forest gave way to an open herb-field and bog known as Smokers Flat (I’ve no idea why all the names seem to pertain to smokers but this is not what attracted us to the walk - whatever the rumours would have you believe). On this day, and in this unusually wet season, the area was almost all boggy so we decided to continue on rather than wet our boots overly. The area is known to contain some rare plants (and a rare bird species) and we had no wish to damage it by trampling all over the place, particularly as it would have been even more susceptible than normal.

A not so rare, but beautiful, Tall Bluebell (Wahlenbergia stricta)

Less than kilometre before walk ends at Square Rock is another trail leading to the Orroral Valley Lookout, so we made this little side journey and took our ease on a rock overlooking it. It was here that a skink, taking no particular interest in us, darted to and fro upon the rock on which we were sitting apparently quite taken with a small orange lichen that was there, we were content with our muesli bars however.

Spencer's Skink munching on lichen

Then it was onward to the Square Rock itself, although my comrade did point out that whoever named it was either very imaginative or lacked even basic geometry when calling the rocks square. I did suggest he was being a little hard on them, particularly considering all the smoke that was seemingly around at the time these places were being named.

Granite boulders at the peak

I digress, we had our remaining vittles upon the ancient granite boulders, some of which were square-ish, looking at the spectacular view. The skeletons of the snow gums (burned in the 2003 bushfires) were striking against the vivid summer sky. A small climb (using the steel ladders provided) gained you a vantage point with uninterrupted views to the mountains north and west.

Looking west from Square Rock

On days like these you realise just how very small we are in the scheme of things. The rocks upon which we were standing were formed when Australia was part of the super continent of Gondwana and the only vertebrates around were still confined to water (I make this statement as no expert in geology or palaeontology so if I err here I am happy for those more knowledgeable in such matters to educate me).

Wavy Lobelia (Lobelia dentata)

We did manage to see a Black Rock Skink (Egernia saxitilis intermedia), which is much larger than all other skinks in the ACT apart from Cunningham’s skink, which it replaces (in terms of ecological niche) above 1000m (Snakes and Reptiles of the ACT, Bennet 1997). I do regret however, that my camera was some way from my person and by the time I had retrieved it the little fellow had left his ledge for the privacy of a deep crevice.

Alpine Baeckia (Baeckia gunniana)

After lunch we retraced our steps, deciding that we didn’t have quite the legs (or time) to go the long way back via, yep you guessed it, Smokers Trail. The whole walk was around 10km and fairly easy, even for a middle-aged fellow with a beer enhanced waistline like myself.

For the full photo set from this walk click here.

Note: As with all my posts I will make every effort to name plants and animals with both common and scientific names. Of course, I am certainly going to be in error occasionally and would certainly appreciate if those were pointed out to me (as kindly as possible please!)

Header picture

The header picture is of Corymbia ficifolia (syn. Eucalyptus ficifolia), commonly known as the Red Flowering Gum. While this is an orange form, there are many other colour forms of this species, mostly in the orange-red range, although  they can be white right through to deep crimson in colour. Also this species has been used as a parent of many cultivars, some of which are available as grafts (usually using Corymbia maculata, Syn. E. maculata as the rootstock).

Red form of Corymbia ficifolia

From my experience this species and many of its hybrids produce an incredible amount of nectar, enough that several bunches of flowers would be enough to produce a glassful - no wonder the bees love it!

The tree is often used in amenity horticulture because of its habit of producing large numbers of conspicously displayed flowers. It is sensitive to heavy frost although with a protection it can survive in a place such as Canberra (-10 C is the lowest recorded temperature). It is most usually quite small but can reach up to 10 or so metres. In colder climates the frosts often 'prune' it so that it becomes a very dense shrub or small tree.

Corymbia 'Summer Beauty' is a cross between C. ficifolia and C. ptychocarpa

In the wild this tree hails from a relatively small area in the south-west of Western Australia. It is not only popular with people, being extremely attractive to nectar feeding insects and birds. All in all a great plant to start the blog off with - enjoy.

The Bumbleblog - buzzing between flowers

The idea behind this blog is to log my adventures in my never ending quest for finding flowers. Its about the flowers and the plants (of course) but its also about what I encounter on the way. Essentially its about nature but I will not restrict it to that - anything (interesting) from my forays into the natural world, be they ten minute walks in the park, ten hour hikes in the mountains or ten month long expeditions (as unlikely as this is), will make it in.

I am new to this blogging thing so I hope my noobness can be worked out fairly quickly and that I can write fairly often. I would like to think that some of my blogs will be quite good guides for those that wish to walk in the same places that I do, we will see.

As I live in Canberra it is likely (at least for the near future) that most of my blogs will concern the local bushland in the area. However, I do like to explore new places, so I hope that areas further afield will also make fairly regular appearances.

A worn out BumbleB taking sustenance at Blue Lake (Kosciuszko National Park)

Oh and don't panic I won't include too many photos of yours truly - mostly the photographs will be much more attractive!