The Coast Walk from North Haven near Laurieton to Grants Head near Bonny Hills can be done in sections, quite varied, and not always well signposted.
It was only because we got a bit lost that we found this wonderful avenue of flannel flowers through low banksia forest. It was an unmarked sandy sideways trail that did reconnect with the Coast Walk and its much taller forest.
There were few other plants in bloom at this late stage of Spring, so those that were, like this melaleuca(?) or callistemon (?) were even more appreciated.
The track leads one to the beach before Grants Head, where this seemingly man-made rock mirrored its slope in reverse.
To avoid retracing our beach steps — plus the tide was coming in — we walked up through a low heath.
Here candles of creamy blossoms were out in profusion amongst windswept low banksias.
My new plant guru Robyn tells me this bountiful and hardy plant is Hakea teretifolia.
The walk winds back down to take you back past peaceful paperbark swamps, now mostly dry but with healthy reed carpets.
This is a totally unfamiliar plant, with its stem-hugging clusters of fleshy orange ‘flowers’ … or are they fruit? ‘Mistletoe’ crossed my mind but there are no accompanying copycat leaves. What is this?
Orange is common enough in the fungi world, here forming bright stepping platters up this stump.
Often it will be seen glowing brightly as new leaves amongst the green, as so prettily done by this vine.
Many of the pea flowering shrubs sport orange in their yellow hearts, as in what I assume is a Dillwynia, noted as very plentiful at Kattang. Any such flowers we used to call ‘Bacon and eggs.’
Others have no orange in their yellow pea centres. I have now bought some secondhand wildflower books but none are arranged so that I can look up, say, ‘all yellow flowers’.
So I am even more confused. Is this a Pultenaea?
And then I see a single tall leggy shrub with clusters of golden flowers and long thin leaves… nothing like the dense low ones. Help! I need a friendly local botanist…
One familiar sunny face was the Twining Guinea Flower (Hibbertia scandens) that I first met at my Mountain.
Leaving the sunny colours, but staying on the warm side of the spectrum, I am relieved to see a plant I do know: the purple Hardenbergia, one of my favourite native climbers, also with pea-shaped blooms. No idea what the white flowering shrub is that it is threading its way through, but a pretty sight altogether!
And flowering fairy-like amongst the grasses were lots of these Blue Flax Lilies (Dianella revoluta). Tiny but stunning, dangling purple stars with golden centres. A fittingly royal purple end to this wildflower walk…
I am hoping somebody can tell me what these strange extra-terrestrial looking clumps are, congregating under the graceful weeping branches of the Horsetail She-oak, Casuarina equisetifolia.
With that grey-green colour, from afar I thought they may have been immature Flannel Flower (Actinotus helianthi) plants, not yet leggy and stretching skyward. But hardly likely…
Yet a few weeks later, those weird clumps on the stony headland, where little else grew, had bloomed… indisputably with Flannel Flowers, though small and still unlike the usual ones, now also in bloom in sandier soil.
These open foliaged, taller Flannel Flowers are the norm…
There’s a lot of white flowers now, although much of the Spring show has finished.
And is this an Isopogon???
But the most mysterious of all to me was this shrub or small tree that a few weeks ago was to be seen in profuse white blossom in much of the Reserve. So widespread and numerous was it that I expected it to be touted, like the Flannel Flowers, as one of the sights to be seen here.
Any clues?
Pretty and profuse, and equally unidentified.
As for weird, the nubbly bark of this Banksia tree takes the cake!
On such an exposed part of the Connors Track, the banksias grew low, their golden candles safe from being extinguished by the wind.
On the walk up to that headland other banksia species grew tall and woody, covered in an enormous number of dark seed cones like hairy hand grenades.
Other banksias in that coastal woodland were sized in between, sporting slim pale new candle flowers, older lemon and amber and woody ones all at once.
It is truly a banksia garden, all growing virtually on sand.
Around the Hungry Gate campground, hoary old paperbarks and strangely grown figs dominated, all reaching great heights just in sand.
On the walk, many tiny dainties graced the sandy banks, often making just one appearance. I had to be sharp to spot them; I am sure I missed many such jewels, as I only saw some on the way back.
On some it was the seed pods that caught my eye more than the flowers.
Others, like this vine, literally stepped in front of me, flaunting its curlicues and brilliant colours.
These Isopogons, also called Coneflowers or Drumsticks, are relatives of the banksia and also have woody seed heads.
This solitary large sample turned out to be a fungus, not a flower at all.
And these three were the only sundews I saw, boldly flashing their sticky red rosettes to lure insects.
The trackside bank held many surprises, from the tiniest mosses and flowers to virtual hedges of lilli-pilli.
But the whole walk was full of surprises. Next time I’ll go the whole way and be prepared for more…
Having moved to the coast, I expected warmer climes, tempered by the nearness to the sea…
But in this recent cold snap, apparently experienced in many places unused to such low temperatures, I find myself needing to rug up at night and early mornings as much I ever did at the Mountain.
In 2007 I did this illustration for The Woman on the Mountain (the publishers didn’t use illustrations in the end) and apart from the ‘primitive’ desktop Mac instead of my present Mac laptop, I am wearing much the same now!
But I am near the coast so I took my new/old/2006 VW 4motion camper to Hat Head National Park recently to briefly test it out. I learnt it needs a lot of work to make it suitable for my off-grid type of camping…
While there we did part of the Connors Walking Track, along a stunning coastline where kangaroo-mown lawns slope down to dark craggy cliffs and an endlessly rippling sea.
It is always hard for me to lift my gaze from the ground, especially on an exposed headland like this, where treasures will be small and shy
Also, as I do not cope well with heights, I stay well back from cliff edges and admire the views from afar.
Up close, I could see hundreds of native yellow paper daisies, snuggled amongst the cropped grass and growing low to avoid the wind.
There were few rocks to afford extra shelter, but plants took advantage of those, with bright pigface and greener grass savouring the lesser evaporation.
Making it as far as Third Beach, I focused on the rocks there, black and round boulders, lichen-painted and dotted, multi-formed and -coloured as they were.
Yet again I wished I knew more of geology to understand how so many disparate shapes and patterns came to be together.
The tide had receded, leaving lines of tiny earth offerings… including hundreds of tiny bits of plastic, most too small for my camera to pick up. Plastic bottle tops were many and obvious, but it was these small bits that appalled me.
So it was a relief to see bird tracks large and small… although would their crops be full of such tiny plastic particles?
As we left the beach, I spotted an isolated clump of Pandanus/Breadfruit trees, propped on their sticklike legs amongst the rocks edging the sand. I am always amazed at the way small pockets of different ecosystems find their perfect niches.
And after the flood and the move, I found I’d needed that brief break as a reminder of the whole natural world of wonders out there awaiting me…
One year since the total burning of the Crowdy Head National Park in last summer’s bushfires, I drove – inched?–over potholes and washouts and corrugations and roadside drain overflows. The coast here has had a month of daily rain.
I was worried my old AWD Subaru was not adequate, as I met bigger, higher, real 4WDS. You can never tell how deep a hole is until you are in it…
The taller forests were blackened trunks, many with new shoots, but not all. As you can see on the higher land, where the trees are still a fringe of skeletons. Too depressing for a photo…
So hope for 2021 only came to me on the heathland, where colour other than green was bravely proclaiming summer.
I have never been able to choose between the ‘real’ dramatic sunsets of a western sky and its reflected eastern sky glories, less often seen.
This golden cumulus cluster just on dark was a rare treat, just when I needed something to lift my spirits as the Trump rampage through what was once a great democracy continued on its mad way… and our heads-in-the-sand government goes for gas instead of the zero emissions way forward we need…
After untamed Nature, my garden has always been my next source of solace, where living things sometimes thrive under my care. This Crepuscule rose seemed to hold and reflect that fabulous sunset, further cheering me.
And then came the news of Jacinda Ardern’s re-election, a beacon of sanity and compassion, giving me heart and hope in an increasingly dark world.
If only…
Her victory did lift my spirits, and they were further buoyed as my Lamarque rose seemed to suddenly burst into the most profuse flowering of its short life. Not golden, but purest white.
Maybe in honour of the integrity and genuine empathy that we can only envy from across the ditch: Yay for Jacinda!
I can no longer keep up my griping about Spring being a harbinger of Summer… the blooms are too beautiful. I can gripe about a Spring day of 30 degrees, as we had yesterday!
My Wisteria had been threatening to bring down the carport with its vigour, but a severe winter pruning has removed risk and delivered these dainty droops of lilac.
My purple Eriostemon shrub is the current native performer.
But mostly it is the English cottage garden stalwarts that are responding to Spring, albeit confusedly.
Like the May bush (Spirea), arching gracefully over my fence with masses of blossoms of the purest of white. In its northern hemisphere home, it would flower in May of course.
One native that would not look amiss in a cottage garden is the bountiful Seaside Daisy (Erigeron). Its happy little faces and its generous spillovers always make me smile.
As do the raggedy blooms of this Crépuscule rose that I am training to grow along my verandah railings; their sunny buds of deep apricot to egg yolk yellow, and paler simple flowers with their golden centres give me joy throughout much of the year. An 1864 variety, it is evergreen, fragrant, uncomplicated and honest!
I am not in the right climate for roses, but to have my old favourites around me, I will persevere.
As the orchids have been flowering over winter, they do not fill me with foreboding. Especially when bedecked with post-rain diamonds, I love seeing them outside my study window.
Not so the too-early signs of Spring, like the Ornamental Grape Vine, shooting and blossoming already. For after Spring comes Summer. Both are associated for me — and for many others — with heat and bushfires.
I love the fragrance of Freesias. I try not to regret their ephemeral nature or their harbinger of Summer status and wish hard that they naturalise here. In general bulbs do not seem to flourish in this sub-tropical climate, whereas at the Mountain they were my annual treat, great clumps of them coming up all through the lawn, untouched by the wallabies.
The little Cumquat trees offer both a visual and taste treat; I pick one bright globe and eat it every morning after I visit my Frogmouth friends. This Nagami variety has a sweet skin and tart flesh, so you get both sensations as you bite into it.
The lavender too cannot be blamed for blooming so profusely, and the bees love it for doing so in a winter short of flowers.
Who can resist sweet-smelling Freesias and Lavender? I quash my forebodings… begone doom and gloom, for the moment… and enjoy small vases of them about the house. Inhale. Smile.
I have been consciously searching for my alternative Corona time colour, given we do not seem to be having Autumn. I have decided the colour will be purple, as more plants are flaunting that than any other colour. As ‘Corona’ means crown, it is quite fitting that the royal colour of purple be the symbolic colour of this time.
But purple is a borderline colour: when does it cross the line to blue, as many of my bee-buzzed Salvias do?
And how nuanced must the purple shade be, as in these beautiful Acacia baileyana purpurea trees, with each branch of sage green leaves ending in a pale purplish haze?
But while I was searching for my colour, I noticed two dark blobs high up in the densely leaved bottlebrush tree out front — nests?
To my great delight, the blobs are two Tawny Frogmouths! Almost impossible to get a clear photo as the leaves and branches criss-cross most successfully to hide them.
Not colourful, but the kind of unique beauty I can never have enough of.
I am seldom out in this part of the garden as it is next to the road, so were I not looking so hard for my Corona colour emblem, I may not have seen these hidden gems.
I planted this lilac Buddleia (aka Butterfly Bush) for obvious reasons – its flowers are beautiful and butterflies love them.
It is attracting at least four varieties that I have seen, the most stunning being the Blue Triangle (Graphium sarpedon choredon).
One of the Swallowtail family (Papilionidae), it keeps its wings up and continually vibrates them when feeding on the flowers. This habit, plus the fact that it also flits fast and frequently from one branch of blossoms to another branch, makes it very hard to capture by photograph.
Like the White-headed Pigeons, these butterflies have adapted to favour the introduced and extremely rampant Camphor Laurel trees.
The butterflies visit singly but the fungi have not got the social distancing message yet. Dozens of tiny brown ones have boldly squeezed up in clusters this morning. I know they will turn black and ‘dissolve’ by tomorrow.
I can relate to that: pop up, take a look at the crazy world we are in, and say ‘No thanks!’
And speaking of bold overcrowding and defiance of restrictions for their own good, those small cinnamon-dusted drumsticks of last week are now full-blown.
As they fight for space, they push into and on top of each other, breaking bits off and distorting their smooth umbrella tops.
When they too disappear, what new surprises will await me on my morning garden forays?
