It was obvious what trees we might see today on our walk, when Lisa and I set off to check out the Bridgetown Jarrah Park, and they get a bit more of a mention in this post that previous ones. This place has a series of loop walks that it is possible to link together, and the information provided wasn’t all that clear making us think that if we walked all fours sections it would be a 12km hike. As it was it was only a 6km ramble but still very worthwhile and being a bit shorter it allowed us to slow down and look about a bit more:

There were certainly more Jarrah trees than others when we started, but both Marri and Karri trees soon started to creep into the landscape.  And at various stages each of them took turns to dominate the landscape.  The understorey was rich with species way beyond my knowledge, but what was heartening was the amount of healthy Banksia.  During our walk in Collie and Ambergate the Banksia we saw was mostly in a dire state, and even at the Warren National Park it wasn’t looking that crash hot.  Here however, it was in great condition:

In my last post I promised you an image of a Marri tree so here it is, it is more akin to a Jarrah than a Karri from a visual perspective.  I’ve only been using the bark as an indicator so far, but it is of course possible to tease them apart when you look at other elements such as the gumnuts they produce.  The bark of the Marri is rough and splotchy, and it often has a dark sap oozing from the trunk.  More on that later.  The Jarrah has a dark, stringy bark and to my untrained eye a giveaway being the vertical groves making it look very different:

While these trees towering above us were amazing to walk through, something that really stood out today was all the lichen and moss.  Not only on fallen trees, but also at the base of trunks and coating rocks.  Bright creams through to vibrant greens littered the area on most ground surfaces that were not covered in leaf litter.  The textures varied immensely, and it gave the appearance of a rain forest floor in some areas.  Looking up close the intricate leaves of the moss was great to see, and in the image below you may get an idea of scale by checking out the water droplets:

The moisture in this area was such that even the grass tree trunks where blackened and covered in lichen and moss.  In the walks to date these have mostly had clean and dry dark brown trunks, but here it almost looked like they were mouldy and were being adversely impacted.  This obviously wasn’t the case with the plants as a whole looking in healthy condition, it was just the trunks that exhibited this poorly look:

For all types of eucalyptus the bark dies each year, and it depends on the type of bark as to how this comes off.  There are over 700 species of eucalypts in Australia, but roughly speaking there are only two types of bark.  These could be described as persistent rough and smooth barks, for the former due to the thicker more ridged nature the bark doesn’t fall off as easily and it tends to accumulate in a stringy mass on the tree itself or can flake off in large sections.  While the smooth bark tends to peel off and tumbles down to the base of the trees and litters the floor, such as these Karri trees:

Karri trees bark can be grey to cream coloured or pale orange, and comes off in long strips like ribbons.  As it falls not only does it litter the floor, seemingly smothering any growth, but it also gets caught in any understorey and it looks like someone has come along and toilet-papered the place.  Being thin when the light catches these natural hanging ornaments their colours come to life.  Today the sun was mostly out and when you caught the angle right the strips lit up beautifully:

There was of course plenty of fungi to find, many we have seen before and so we could be a bit more selective of which ones I would stop and spend more time examining.  These red mushrooms really stood out.  Many of the ones we find have different coloured stems, caps and/or gills.  But every part of these ones were completely red and I’m going to take a stab that because of this they may be Red Brick Laccaria:

The four loops of this walk followed a creek line.  This based on our walk last weekend, with creek crossings fully submersed, made Lisa was a little nervous.  Even more so when she read that sections of this creek would include water cascading over rocks in winter.  Images of needing to wade through the water on slippery rock was in her mind, but she needn’t have worried as the creek was tiny in comparison, and at each crossing it would have been possible to simply step over it:

This was to our benefit at one crossing, where the path had been completely engulfed by a huge fallen tree.  The area was completely covered in large broken branches, obscuring our vision of what lay beneath.  The extent of the debris was so far that it wasn’t possible to see where the path continued until you had worked your way part way through the fallen timber.  We managed to get through this section with no incidents and no wet feet:

Even though it had dawned on us early on that the walk would only be half of what we expected, we still stopped for a cuppa several times.  Afterall there’s no point in lugging all the food and a hot flask of tea along if we weren’t going to occasional stop and enjoy it.  This gave us a chance to sit peacefully under the canopy above us with the creek gurgling over the rocks nearby.  And while the forest here wasn’t alive with bird song the all the time, we were on occasion serenaded not only by the birds but also the frogs:

Taking a slow pace was important to not only appreciate the big stuff but also to look for the little things.  The track was just that, a goat track being narrow and windy, and we were often ducking or weaving to avoid low, fallen or broken branches.  Walking single file, we attempted to keep one eye looking for obstacles, one watching all the trees and scenery, and a third on the ground.  Well seeing that isn’t possible for one person, between us we managed to observe all three:

As an example, in the image above Lisa had noticed the flecks of yellow but had passed them thinking they were more recently fallen leaves starting to yellow.  I however thought they looked strange, stopped to check them out and found them to be a small and unusual looking fungi.  A brilliant yellow single strand standing up to 50mm high, and they were in clusters of no more than three strands.  That made me think this wasn’t a Coral fungus, which will usually have multiple branched strands tightly clumped.  Nor was it likely to be Earth Tongues, as I wasn’t aware of them being brightly coloured:

So I’m going with Scotsman Beard, but I’m not one hundred percent sure of that as in doing my research I feel like they are mostly found on trunks and not growing straight out of the ground like this.  We were not only puzzled by some of our small finds but also the trees.  On this track many of them had signs to let you know what they were.  The one Lisa is admiring was labelled as a Blackbutt, whereas with my very untrained eye and only looking at the bark I would have gone with a Marri.  I became even more confused later when Howsie told me that Blackbutts are more alike to Jarrah than Marri trees:

Rather than get bogged down in all that, as I am getting well out of my depth with this we shall move on.  And as the sign in the image below rightly says, here is a fine specimen… of a Jarrah tree with it’s rough bark and deep vertical groves.  The leaflet from last weekend reliable informs me that these grow up to 40m, whereas Marris can reach 60m and Karris being the big brothers reach a lofty 90m.  This one certainly looked to me to be way over 40m, but the leaflet does qualify the height by saying up to 40m in poor soil and lower rainfall areas.  And this area had neither of them:

As we strolled along I came across a completely unexpected and new find.  I had heard that due to the wet winter some orchids were already starting to come out, several weeks or more earlier than usual.  And I’m pleased to say that while I didn’t expect to find any today, I was wrong.  The distinct attributes of an orchid flower were evident, but I wasn’t able to identify this one until I got home.  It is a Midge Orchid, of the Cyrtostylis genus of which there are five species.  Three of which are found in Western Australia, the other two being the Mosquito and Gnat Orchids:

We also found the Banded Greenhood Orchid, which I now know isn’t unusually at this time of year being one of the earliest orchids to flower.  It was however pretty to see a small colony of them ground on top of a large fallen trunk, of which there were a great many.  Where the root ball of these fallen trees had ripped up the earth it was a great place to spot fungi, with these being some of the biggest mushrooms we found with 15 to 20cm wide caps.  I think they may be of the Rhodocollybia genus but that is a bit of a wild stab in the dark:

Not all the fungi specimens we came across were in great condition, and this one in particular I liked.  Most of the ones that looked in poor condition were either due to age or damage from being trampled on or have had branches fall on them.  This one however had been partially eaten, and we can only assume that the juicy part was the top of the cap as the gills had been left exposed round most of the edge:

There was one plant that we saw that just didn’t look right in this landscape, and we pondered if it was a type of protea that had been introduced.  However, from this single image Howsie reckons it is a Tassel Flower or as he called it Leucopogon verticillatus.  The fleshier appearance of the leaf just looked out of place to us, but I have read that it is often found in gravelly lateritic or granitic soils and in wetter areas, which summed up this area perfectly.  We’ll have to come back in a month or so to see it in flower, as it is supposed to be beautiful:

The real stars of today’s walk were however the trees, the track meandered past some huge ancient trees.  I’ve read some can be up to 400 and over years old, one Jarrah tree in Armadale near Perth is estimated to be between 400 and 800 years old.  The track had initially followed the small creekline in the valley floor before then traversing up the side of the shallow valley allowing us the spectacle from both below and then above.   I liked this image because the sun came out and lit up the stripy bark on the Karri giving a hint of those grey to cream and pale orange colours:

Now it is time to go back to the Marri trees and as I mentioned before they often ooze a dark sap, Lisa said to me that it made the trees look sad.  This red sap is called kino and contains tannin.  Kino has been used for medicinal purposes by aboriginal people, and also for dye and as a preserve for animal skins by Europeans in the early 1900s.  The tree however uses it just like we use blood, exuding it as a protective response against any physical wounds where the bark has been damaged, including by insects:

One last image from our walk, and this looks a bit gross so sorry.  It looks like someone has literally ripped this small trunk open.  No amount of kino is likely to heal this injury.  The injury on this tree bears the hallmarks of a canker disease that is known in the South West to be contributing to the decline in Marri trees in some areas.  It is caused by a pathogen called Quambalaria coyrecup, and sadly once symptoms of canker are visible the tree is unlikely to recover.  Like before I am however struggling with my tree identification, as the bark on this one indicates it is a Jarrah not a Marri:

It is the last weekend of the winter school holidays, which is both good and bad.  It meant another three day weekend for me but also signals that next week Lisa heads back to the classroom.  At least it won’t be another gruelling eleven week term for her like the last one.  Today we headed off to a place we haven’t been before, providing unknown terrain for Lisa’s boots and unfamiliar country for us to explore.  It was a bit more of a drive this time, close to two hours heading inland and south:

The Warren National Park offered a reasonable loop walk comprising a ten kilometre hike that took us on a journey through the Karri forests and along the Warren River.  The vegetation was very different to what we had experienced up near Collie, and the undergrowth was thick and lush with ferns, grass tress and many shrubs.  We came across the same saplings we found in Collie, the ones that looked like a broadleaf and seemed in Collie’s drier landscape to be invasive, so we took this image and I hope Howsie may be able to let me know what plant it is:

The hike would take us on four sections, each with a rest spot that was adjacent to a road that also follows the same loop, allowing hikers and car tourists to equally access the area.  We were lucky and only came across one group during out walk and with four young children they didn’t walk much of the hike, leaving us to enjoy the tranquillity of the place.  Lisa was, from the start, mentioning she was ready for a snack.  Understandable due to the two hour drive that meant it was already close to midday, but she held off until we had completed the first leg of our trek:

Despite the road being so close to the trail we didn’t hear many cars, we assumed that was due to being a Friday and not many people would be out.  We did however see quite a few cars at the place we parked, and the reason for that will become clearer towards the end.  Now while this may all sound a little selfish, and yes it probably is, during this walk we were continually serenaded by bird song.  Another noticeable difference with our walk near Collie.  The varied sounds echoed through the forest all the time we were there, and the only time it was drowned out was when other people were about:

While I had in my last post promised to focus on flowers this week, this lush green and vibrant place was devoid of flowers.  So I’m afraid it will be back to fungi again for this one, but I have moderated the number of images I have included to the most unusual or spectacular.  The above looked like it could be a Rainbow Bracket Fungus, as the top surface had the same radial pattern and colours to resemble a rainbow plus the shape was about right.  But from what I have read they are not supposed to grow as big as the one we came across:

Next up above is one of several Golden Chanterelle we found, this is one of the most popular wild edible mushrooms… if I have correctly identified them.  The funnel shape of the cap, distinctive bright  colour and way the gills continue into the stem makes me pretty sure I am right, but we didn’t do a taste test just in case.  Then there was this tiny single mushroom that like so many others I have found you would think was easy to identify, but alas I have not been able to find out anything about:

Leg two was soon behind us, and while we spent a bit of time to stop and look at a few fungi and other finds on the whole we had been hiking.  The pace was certainly quicker today but with each leg we were slowing down a bit, which I’m pleased about as we hiked the first section so fast it felt like we may have completed the entire loop in two hours.  On the second section we descended down to the Warren River.  It’s a reasonably sized river being close to a hundred and forty kilometres long and having a catchment size of close to four and half thousand square kilometres:

With all the rain of recent weeks it had swollen, but being the first time we had been here it was hard to appreciate that when we first came across it.   We found some steps leading down to the water and sat there having a snack and another small cuppa, as we watched the water flow past.  It may seem calm on the surface but there was certainly a bit of velocity in the water.  At each stop I took a bit of time to look about and at this one I found a small cluster of Fairy Inkcaps.  The stem and shape, pattern and texture of the cup making it a pretty safe bet:

I feel like  the fungi field guide Verity put me onto, along with a few others I have dug out, are starting to become more useful.  Maybe also my eye is becoming trained of what to look for.  As we were about to head off a laughing kookaburra swooped down from its previously unnoticed perch, and scooped up a worm.  We sat and watched it for a while as it wasn’t afraid of us.  Hinting that it was used to people being about and we wondered if was waiting for us to leaving something tasty behind, which we didn’t as there is plenty of natural food about for it.  If you look carefully in the image below you may see it:

This next section followed the river, and at times got pretty close to it.  There were heaps of fallen trees on this walk, many blocking the path and it became a bit of an obstacle course.  On the previous wider track they were relatively easy to get round but here the track narrowed to a small trail and some of the obstacles proved to be quite entertaining.  Something that did surprise us was that despite all the rain we have had the track was mostly dry and in good condition.  We had half expected to come across big puddles and flooded section like last week, but we didn’t:

The only car we heard while on the walk was doing a U-turn at this point.  I imagine that they had thought they might get over the river crossing, but you’d be pretty dumb to attempt it today.  Despite being flooded the road crossing did however provide a shallower and rougher surface over which the water bobbled and gurgled providing sound, unlike the silence we had observed for the rest of the river section.  The path carried on and so did we, and we felt lucky to have had the place almost all to ourselves in such peaceful conditions.  It would no doubt be a whole different experience during busty times:

I mentioned earlier this walk went thought the Karri forest.  While I had a good knowledge of the trees in England and didn’t do too bad in central Australia, here I am a bit of a numbskull.  I find the shear variety a tad overwhelming, that said I have started to build up my fish and now fungi knowledge, so maybe I should attempt to become a bit more aware of the trees.   In the first image of the post and towards the end the Karris stand out, they are the tallest trees here and can grow to ninety meters high.  The giveaway feature being their tall straight trunks with smooth slivery bark:

The forest also had many Marri and Jarrah trees, in fact the Jarrah (above) were more prominent along the river section.  Only growing to forty meters these are again distinguishable by the trunk, which comprised a vertical deep grooved texture that looks to be fibrous in nature.  The one above gave into the winds, in part as the lower section looked to have been munched on by termites reducing its structural integrity.  I’ve got no image of a Marri in this post, maybe next time but for now back to the track, which at this point disappeared under water:

There were numerous locations where small tributaries flowing down the side of the valley joined the Warren River.  To help cross these logs had been placed, with the upper section flattened, some with hand rails and some without.  This one without was the only one fully submerged, knee deep for me and closer to thigh deep for Lisa.  So we had to not only take our shoes off but also bear our legs, as we waded across.  I’m always keeping an eye out for finds great and small, and while I appreciate it is winter it does surprise me at how few insects I see.  But I did somehow spot this two millimetre long spider, as it floated across to and then latched onto this reed:

There is little point in me trying to identify the spider, but hopefully QuestaGame will help.  That said I have had very little response from them on the numerous fungi I have put on the App.  Luckily I do not need their help with this next one which is an Earth Tongue, it looks a bit like a couple of antenna poking out to see if it is safe for whatever lies beneath to come out.  While fungi can be a sign of disease in woody plants, they are also a forest recycler and play an important role in decomposing matter to make it more available to other plants and of course some of them also provide a food source:

We eventually reached the end of the river section, and while the whole walk had been really good that section was by far the most fun and varied.  We had intended to stop and take in the calmness that being by water seems to ooze, but the single bench was wet and covered in slim so we decided not to stop there.  We did potter around for a short while to check out what was about and I must admit I lingered a bit long as it felt a little sad to leave the river.  So I have included one more image, again an indication that the river was indeed higher than usual:

The last few kilometres of the hike would take us up the valley side to a lookout before then returning to where we started.  Half way there was supposed to be a look out but the view, while nice, was somewhat obscured. Again we found the single bench here to be wet, slimy and uninviting.  So after looking around and taking in the view from on high we soldier onwards, back on the wider tracks to where we started.  We did come across one flower as we crossed the road before the final stretch back, but I’m sure that it was an invasive weed species so decided not to include it:

The sun started to come out as we got back where there was still a bit more to the journey for me, as I was keen to see the sight from the top of the Bicentennial tree.  This used to be one of three fire trees that the public could climb, I have been up the Diamond tree but that was sadly closed in 2019 as the tree became diseased.  This one however is higher at 75m whereas the Diamond tree was only 49m and a third fire tree called  the Gloucester tree sits at 58m.  The Diamond and Gloucester tree climbs and platforms were built in 1939 and 1947 respectively, and were used as lookout locations for fires:

This one was built in 1988 to celebrate Australia’s bicentenary, so in some ways is more of a tourist attraction than the other two.  But that said the way it is constructed is the same, metal pins driven into the trunk with a wire mesh round the outside.  At times these pins become almost vertical and there are no other safety features.  Needless to say Lisa, sitting way below on the bench,  didn’t fancy coming up.  What I find interesting is that every Tom, Dick and Harry has a go at climbing these trees with a potentially fatal fall, yet they are quick to say that rock climbers are reckless and dangerous:

Still I am glad that these places exist and we can have these experiences.  It was here that most people came and parked up, some but not all climbed the tree and others just looked in awe.  Today at least, very few had wandered into the great Karri forest as we had.  Our timing had worked quite well and I only passed one person coming down, which is fun on these narrow pins.  This meant I had the lookout to myself and just like the entire walk even up here the bird song sang out.  I tried hard to spot my feathered friends but was unable to see any of them in the high canopies:

Down on the ground however Lisa was spotting heaps and while I won’t recount all the ones we saw I will mention a few that we haven’t seen before including a Blue Breasted Fairy Wren, White-Naped Honeyeater, Western Thornbill and this very bold Rufous Treecreeper.  The last one coming right up to Lisa, no doubt like the kookaburra having become accustomed to associating food with humans.  We sat here and finished off our tea and last of the food while watching the birdlife around us:

Lisa has definitely got the bug, and is keen to continue our weekend walks during  school term time.  We shall see how her energy levels go, what with going back to work and early weekday morning fitness classes.  But that said I’m keen and there are plenty of new places for us to still explore, and then go back to at different seasons to see how they change.  For now I will leave you will these Golden Tuart Cortinar, and you’ll have to wait and see if and where we might get out to next weekend:

Friday the rain came down in torrents and it was all very uninviting, and they reckon Monday there will be a bigger front coming.  But the weekend promised two reasonable days between the big storms that have been bashing the south west of Western Australia.  So Lisa and I decided we would head out while we could to give her hiking boots a more robust test.  Today we headed up to Wellington National Park, with the intention of heading to a lookout that we had not been able to get to last time due to controlled burns that were being undertaken:

We parked up and were on the track by midmorning, I had promised Lisa to keep a steady pace and not get too distracted.  With all the rain this place would no doubt provide a bounty of fungi for me to check out, and we were not to be disappointed.  Almost immediately they were jumping out at me and I was on my knees checking out the colours, textures, shapes and sizes.  After my post last weekend Verity had sent me a field book of the Fungi of the Perth Region and Beyond, so this time it felt like I was armed ready to be able to identify a few:

I hadn’t taken the field guide with me, that would have been a big mistake and we wouldn’t have got more than a few kilometres.  I did however endeavour to keep in mind the important features, ready for when I got home to start my research.  However, despite my best endeavours I can safely say that identifying fungi, compared to fish is a complete nightmare.  I have done my best but am sure I have got some if not most wrong, with so many similar looking fungi out there it is hard:

It was also hard to not stop every few steps, so many variety were out and I took way too many images.  Conscious of not taking too long I often rushed and there were a few fungi in particular that looked amazing, for which the images sadly didn’t come out.  While this post will have lots of images of the fungi, there are also a few of plants, birds, flowers and scenery slotted in as well.  Lisa told me sometimes you have to stop looking at the detail and take in the bigger picture, and she is of course right:

Starting with the first image of this post I think I found the Australian Umber Amanita, Hairy Stereum, a variety of Bracket fungus, maybe a type of Oyster fungus (above).  The only one I can say with any certainty is the Hairy Stereum, the field guide has sadly not been all but useful in identify the others one.  Then there is the image below, and I struggle to know whether it is a collection of Ink or Pixie Cap mushrooms.  The similarity of so many species is incredible and I’ve failed to find out how to distinguish them:

As we approached the lookout, which was only a few kilometres into the hike I spied a fallen grass tree.  It had some jelly like goo oozing out of the fallen trunk, and I wonder if the goo was a residue leaking out of the dead plant or an infection that had killed it.  Instead of providing you with an image of the goo, I have included what I found growing inside the broken trunk.  Any amazing delicate looking fungus that was wafer thin, and I assume may be another type of oyster fungus due to the look and how slender it was:

The hike up to the lookout was the steepest and longest incline we were to encounter on our walk.  At the top we rewarded ourselves with a small cup of tea and snack.  Lisa made use of the bench nestled in amongst the trees, while I scampered round to take in the unobscured views.  Finding a granite slab I simply had to check it out to see if it was worth considering from a climbing perspective.  I’m not convinced with what I saw but I didn’t get too close to the edge as it was running with water a little slippery:

After a short break we hit the track, and the narrow path we had been following widened out into an access track.  I tried my best not to keep looking down, and we kept up a bit more of a steady pace.  The ground on either side comprised a relatively clear understorey with the occasionally grass trees, the taller trees overhead all looked charred and blackened from recent wild fires or was it from controlled burns.  The evidence of the fires went high up the trees, in some cases tens of meters, which gave the indication the fire wasn’t so controlled:

I included the above image as the leaves of this grass tree were all wavy.  I can’t recall seeing a grass tree like this before, they have all had straight leaves even the smaller or younger grass trees.  This one was a reasonable size the leaves stretched out a good half a meter in length, and I was unable to find a single straight strand.  While the pace was kept up for a while I had to stop when I came across this strange fungus, like so many today it was the only one of this sort I found and it was very different:

You’d think it would be easy to get a name for this one.  Not only due to the very distinctive patterning on the upper side, but also when you see the incredible underside.  It looks like it is rotten and dissolving, was it all the rain that was deforming it or is this how it naturally looks?  It has to go down as one of the most disgusting looking fungi I came across, but at the same time it was fascinating to see and I think I spent more time checking this one out that any other one:

We carried on with our hike and despite being high on the hill we came across large flooded areas.  Due to the open nature of the track and understorey, these were easy to avoid.  I kept encouraging Lisa to test her boots, as they are reputed to be waterproof. But she was never keen and instead went to every effort to get round these areas, even after I splashed through them.  I might add I was wearing my snow boots today not my sandals, and they held up just fine against all the water:

We came to a junction and had a choice, to complete the lookout circuit or to extend the walk and take in part of the trail we had done last spring.  We were both feeling okay to keep going, and it was so peaceful in the forest that we decided to extend the hike.  My stops were way less frequent now and as we got closer the reservoir and more well-trodden paths we came across many fallen trees, and just as many that had been felled.  This large tree that had been cut down looked like it was crying brilliant red blood:

All the fallen and felled trunks provided the ideal habitat for fungi to grow or should I say fester.  Lots of bracket fungi as well as colourful moulds grew on them, and when you looked underneath many cap and oyster fungi.  This one was a really cool find, again like so many others I only one of this type.  The perfect button cap making it look like a cultivated button mushroom found on the shelves of a supermarket.  However, this one wasn’t smooth skinned and the slightly pink cap looked to have a woven fibrous coating:

You’d think I could identify the above, but no chance!  We marched on as it wasn’t time to stop for lunch, or whatever the time might dictate the meal should be called.  I should say it wasn’t the place, as oppose to time.  We had set our sights on getting to Potter Gorge campsite for out next cup of tea and feed, and eventually we got there.  My estimated time of five to ten minutes was more like half an hour, and before we got there Lisa couldn’t hold out so she munged on a banana to keep her going:

We again had a bench on which to dine, next to the reservoir of Wellington Dam.  Despite all the rain we have had the water level was still very low, proving that we really weren’t getting that much.  We just aren’t used to proper wet winters anymore.  After we had finished feeding ourselves a magpie and then ten or so fairy wrens descended upon us, looking for tasty leftovers.  Obviously very used to humans they joined us at the table, hopping about keeping one beady eye on the table for food and the other on us in case we made any sudden movements:

It was time for the next stage of our journey, which took us past the café near the quarry where I often climb.  As we left Potters Gorge the rain came in, but we had a good six kilometres to walk still, so we didn’t look for shelter and just carried on.  As we walked my eyes started to drift again, but the rain made me pass by many of would be treasures.  The only one I really stopped for was the groovy Beefsteak fungus in the second image below, looking from below a little like a light and fluffy orange sponge cake:

The carpark at the café was heaving and people were milling about all over, which felt kind of strange after all the quiet solitude we had been lucky to have enjoyed.  We didn’t hang about there and walked on to get to the next stretch of peacefulness.  We trudged on as the rain lifted but made a slight detour before getting back to the walking track.  Lisa had not yet seen the mural on the dam wall and seeing it was a mere hundred yards off our course I suggested we have a look:

The blue sky was once more upon us as we looked at the mural.  It was bathed in sunlight, unlike all my previous images taken in the early morning as I made my way to the quarry for a climb.  People were parking up and walking along the bridge to take it in, take a photo, and then carry on with their vehicular tour of the area.  We didn’t join the crowd, instead looking at it from a far before returning back to the track to walk along the side of the Collie River back to where our car would be waiting:

We had walked this track before, last spring.  This time the water in the river looked cloudy and green proving that there had been more flow as sediments were mobilised.  However, despite all the water everywhere the river wasn’t flowing very fast, this is partly due to the dam regulating how much water goes down it.  It’s only when the dam overflows that the river will act in a natural way, and that rarely happens.  We have only seen that occur once in the fifteen plus years we have lived here:

The track follows the river like a rollercoaster as it goes up and down over the valley sides, the river is ever present on your left and where is cascades over rocks to form rapids the sound rises up to greet you.  Then in the open long pools silence fills the air again.  This silence was only broken on the occasional time we came across birds, we mostly saw fantails and red breasted robins.  In the distance the ever present red tailed cockatoos could be heard, and earlier in our walk before Potters Gorge we had come across them in the trees.  Providing a stop that wasn’t instigated by fungi:

In the valley there seemed to be more flowers out.  These purple flowers resembled the heather that Lisa and I were so used to in England.  Interestingly when we got up close and where the purple petals had opened up there was a small blue flower inside.  There were more flowers to observe and marvel at, even though it is winter, but I’ll wait for another time to include images of them.  For now back to the fungi, and here is an image looking up at a great collection that were in burnt out grass tree:

I’ve looked in a few guides and on the web and they could have been a few variety including Golden Tuart Cortinar or Marbled Death Cap, very different indeed!  You may be pleased to know that I kept a safe distance from all of my finds, I didn’t fancy touching any of them especially the gooey and dripping ones.  The valley felt more green and lush that the higher country we had been through, and in places looked to be glowing.  Even more so when the sun came out:

All this greenery was possibly being kept so vibrant by the continual supply of water.  The track was cut into the hillside and quite often we came across water pouring out of the steep sides.  The hillside was saturated with groundwater, and it flowed fast and freely.  There were also locations where surface water cascaded down the depressions in the steep valley sides, like little creeks forming waterfalls.  What a contrast to the last time we walked this track on a dry and hot spring day:

On the last leg of our hike the water was often running down the path of least resistance, the track itself.  Pouring from the hillside onto the open ground and then flowing until it reached a low point to allow it to flow down towards the river.  Some of these continued for a hundred meters or more, forcing Lisa to test the boots to see if they were waterproof, and they were.  In this image you may also notice the broadleaf saplings on the side of the track, they certainly didn’t seem native and it was good to see they were only in isolated areas:

I have to include one more image of a fungi, this one was a bit bizarre and I’ve sadly not been able to identify it.  The spikey upper side is so distinctive, so hopefully I’ll get a positive identification using QuestaGame.  I’ve flooded the app with fungi images, but as yet none of the ones I found last week have been verified.   They may get sick of me when I load the next ten to fifteen from this trip.  Equally if I carry on like this you may too get over it, but based on comments received on my post from last week I don’t think that will happen:

I was going to include a Dusky Helmet mushroom but decided instead on finishing with this Grevillia to shake things up.  Also to get you excited about the next instalment of Lisa and my walks, when I’ll focus on the flowers.  I do need to report that Lisa’s boots passed the test with flying colours.  Being both comfy for her fused big toe and waterproof.  Our walk today was just short of twenty kilometres so not too tardy and took in all the things that would aggravate her toe including a long steep incline, rocky terrain and steps so a real good test:

The school holidays are upon us and I normally take a day off here and there while Lisa is on leave.  It looks like we will have a proper wintery school holiday this year, and this mornings’ walk on the beach was cold and blustery.  Not that there was much of the beach to walk on, with the dark choppy water eating its way up close the base of the dunes:

The overnight storm had pushed weed up the top of the beach, which was now stranded at the high tide mark.  On days like today it is hard to imagine that the waters are ever warm, clam and clear enough for me to snorkel in.  Today instead of looking underwater I was beachcombing the weed to see what had been caught up in it.  This included endless numbers of marble sized sea urchins much smaller than the ones I see, and the occasional fish:

There were also heaps of bluebottle jellyfish, the largest with a body ten centimetres long.  This one was nowhere near that size, but it did still have its long trailing stinger still intact.  The body floats on the water with this stinging tail draping below waiting for unsuspecting prey.  Much as it could be a very painful experience, I would really love to see one of these in the water:

Lisa and I got home just in time, as the rain started to fall.  We then got ready to head out for another but longer walk.  Having recently and finally found some walking boots that feel comfortable, despite her upturned fused big toe, she was all revved up to test them.  So regardless of the driving rain that was hitting the windshield, as we drove to Ambergate, we were determine to have a wander:

Our trip here last spring was the first and only time we had been here, and then we were looking out for orchids.  Today we were just out to have a walk, with nothing in particular in mind to look for.  But seeing we had an idea of what the terrain would be like, i.e. level and easy walking, it provided the ideally place for the first real test of the boots and whether they would remain comfortable:

We timed things perfectly and the rain stopped as we arrived, and we had a second pleasant surprise to find quite a few flowers out.  It wasn’t the mass of blazing colours we had seen before but the occasional white, pink, yellow, blue, red and purple broke up the greens of the equally lovely grass trees, shrubs and grasses.  I was fascinated by this sundew type plant using it’s sticky flowers to make use of other plants to gain height:

I was even more stunned when I came across an orchid.  I’ve seen the Banded Greenhood orchid before but simply didn’t expect to find them out this time of the year.  I now know better and have read that they start to flower as early as May, and are amongst the first Greenhood orchids to flower.  I’ll have to find out what other orchids flower so early, and start looking for them:

It wasn’t just the flowers that caught my eye.  I’m not going to even guess what tree this is, but we loved the texture of the trunk.  The knobbly look of the partly burnt trunk made it look all warty, with the red sap oozing out of sores.  It is the only trunk we saw like this, but that said it was probably also the biggest tree we came across so maybe some of the younger ones will turn out like this in time:

While we were out to test Lisa’s boots there was a lot of stopping to check out what might be about.  This included an amazingly structured home of what I believe to be a Bagworm caterpillar.  The image probably makes it look bigger than it is.  It is only about five centimetres long so you can hopefully now appreciate the delicate nature of the tiny sticks that it has cut to perfect size to build its home:

All over the ground was the familiar sign of cockatoos, half chewed gumnuts.  We could hear their call and as we rounded a corner spied them up in the canopy.  It took them a while to notice us, as they busily added to the collection of chewed gumnuts littering the floor. Eventually we decided to walk forward, which was when they alighted flashing their white tails at us:

While we had spied so much already, I had spent most of the time looking down towards the groundcover immediately off the path.  Being winter I was on the hunt for fungi, and there was a pretty good collection of them scattered throughout this reserve.  So many in fact that I struggled to know which images to include.  So I have decided to provide you with a collection of images with less words than usual:

As the fallen debris from the grass tree stem on the ground indicate this one was tiny, maybe a centimetre in diameter:

I only came across two of these red coloured fungi, and sadly both had been munched by something:

Next up was the home of fairies, tiny and delicate conical capped fungi huddled together on fragile 1mm diameter stalks:

This wavy shaped one was an unmissable being a vivid bright yellow, and strangely smooth on the underside while the top of the millimetre thick plate was covered in tiny matted filaments:

Then there were the bigger specimens, this one measuring closer to fifteen centimetres and resembling a pixie’s hat, with a distinct bobbly pattern:

This was one of the strangest, it looked like the caps were dissolving as if someone had poured acid over them.  The partly intact caps looked sickly, poorly and very uninviting:

The only way to truly identify mushrooms and toadstools is to also check the gills under the cap, but most were too small or low down to allow that.  Unlike this one, which was close to twenty centimetres wide and fifteen centimetres tall, and had a cap covered in a sticky residue:

In amongst all the standard fungi, there was the occasional unusual find.  I’m really interested to find out what this one is, and to give an idea of size it is only about three to four centimetres high:

This green one is smaller than all of the others, and each stem is only about a centimetre high and it might be a type of lichen.  I have put all of my finds up on QuestaGame, so will hopefully get them identified: 

The more traditional fungi’s kept appearing, and I had to keep a sharp eye out to find these.  Again only a few centimetres across and very well camouflaged:

One last fungi image and I had to include this one.  The top reminds me of a freshly baked cupcake or cookie, and as I watched it something jumped across my view:

The tiny cricket landed on the same fallen log, a mere few centimetres long but with the camera already set to macro it was the ideal chance to take a snap before it continued its journey and was lost from sight:

We too carried on, all be it at what seemed a much slower pace.  By now we were however getting hungry, and the thought of pizza at the Shed Brewery in Busselton hurried us along.  The boots were still doing their job, and Lisa’s toe wasn’t whinging or complaining one bit.  So next weekend we will head somewhere with rougher terrain to take the test to the next level:

As we neared the car we again heard the familiar sound in the canopy, and stopped to watch.  This time they seemed a little more jittery, and took flight before we continued on our walk.  As they lifted off the branches they showed us their true colours, making us very happy to have seen both the white and red tail cockatoos: