Landscapes

After Lighthouse

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I have decided to investigate each of the fire trails that penetrate the bush and heath after the civilisation of Lighthouse Beach has been left behind.

The first is Immediately after the last ‘estate’.

So close to houses and yet still wild enough to house some surprises for me, like this fallen forked branch fully decked in what might be orchids? Healthy greenery at any rate…

There are enough older trees with hollows for other plants… and hopefully creatures…to use as homes.

Some trees are very large, like this impressive one, which I think is an Angophora. It is so grand that I am grateful it has survived; too twisty for saw logs?

There is a variety of palms to be seen from the fire trail, adding to the patterns of foliage as if by design.

There are lots of paperbarks, including those surrounding a very full and rather scummy swamp.

A few wildflowers are out but what surprised me was above my eye level: a red-flowering mistletoe in a tree. Its slender bells were more noticeable when fallen onto the now sandy ground below.

Also eye-catching was a small sawn-off stump (ti-tree?) emulating a flower.

Almost at the beach, I was halted by this shell-studded plastic rope, its bright tresses cascading down the side of a Ned Kelly sculpture, a post. Someone must have picked it up as beach flotsam and grown weary of carrying it, but I appreciated the artistic sense of the arrangement.

I did reach the sea, only to find the beach scored by 4WD tracks, even up on the higher levels where they should not be, where shorebirds might nest.

Worse than Dunbogan Beach.

But here is just south of the very popular Lighthouse Beach, and it is not long after the October weekend when thousands of extra people visited.

Still, the sea, collaborating with the sky and sun, make such a picture that I can ignore what has been done to the sand.

And the walk itself has been worth doing.

Botanica tropica

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Lake Eacham on the Atherton Tablelands is a beautiful crater lake, filled only by rainwater. Mostly blue, in parts it is this amazing green. Seen from the walk around the lake, the fact that it is likely from algae does not detract from the surprise or the beauty.

There are so many unknown plants in these forests that I can only marvel. They are always hard to photograph, as so brightly skyward dominated above, with darkly buttressed forest below.

The ‘birds’ nest’ ferns are huge, and different from what I am used to.

This is a fallen one, dead and stiff, like a woven work of art, partly finished.

This one was atypically low-growing. The Queensland I.D. group suggests it’s Basket Fern (Drynaria rigidula) which makes absolute sense.

Amidst all the greenish trunks, I kept seeing occasional ones that were eye-catchingly bright orange-red, and flaky. The boffins suggest Paperbark Satinash (Syzygium papyraceum).

Tree ferns were common near the small clear-running creeks.

The most notable plants for me were the vines, some so old and gnarled (left) as to look older than the trees they used to help them climb to the light. Others (right) had unusually papery bark, pale green and deceptively soft.

For any vine to climb so high, they cannot be too soft, as this one (left) shows, where it has forced the host tree to accommodate its growth. But mostly they seemed more flexible, with a simple hugging help-up needed now and then, (right) twisting around themselves for added strength.

Some had not yet found a host tree and had twisted every which way in the search.

At whatever stage they are, vines, like fungi, fascinate me. 

These rainforests offered me far more than blog posts will accommodate, but after this one I will leave them to their tropical wonders and return to Nature in my more southerly climes.

Fantasy forest

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Life is a struggle in the rainforest, and elaborate means are used to reach the light and to survive.

This huge Curtain Fig on the Atherton Tableland is famous, but not unique.

Once the fig had strangled the host tree, it fell over on to another tree, and the vertical roots descended to feed it, forming a curtain.

On another walk, this one showed the process of development of those curtains.

But figs are not orderly in their strangling.

Or gentle. This could look like an embrace but it has a relentlessness about it that seems cruel. Anthropomorphic, I know.

Where do root and trunk differentiate?  Incredible colours and shapes kept catching my eye in this fantasy world.

I have no idea what is going on in this miniature strangling scenario, but it seems not of this world. And is it plant or creature or something in between?

Lake Tinaroo surprise

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The Barron River on Queensland’s Atherton Tableland was dammed in 1958 for agriculture. It flows on after the towering dam wall that contains the large Lake Tinaroo.

Lake Tinaroo is edged by rainforest and mountains in some parts, as in Danbulla National Park, giving it many moods, and by domesticated areas in others.

I am staying at my friend Inge’s Tinaroo Haven BnB, a precious few acres of bushland full of wildlife and birdsong.

The Lake is hugely popular for fishing and boating, but its shallow areas’ dead trees marking it as man-made reduce its appeal for me.

As I have just read the evocative ‘Cool Water’ by Myfanwy Jones, set during the construction of this dam, I am especially attuned to the drowned land that lies beneath the surface.

But the dam spillway is another matter. The day I was there it was spilling over from the Lake in an amazing perpetual pattern, roaring with beauty.

The constantly changing chevrons of white lace were mesmerising.

Once they reached the base they created new patterns.

My friend had never seen the spillway like this, but rather a more even overflow curtain. This day I was just lucky.

History and Nature

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The charming Roto House is a gem in Port Macquarie’s armoury of attractions. John Flynn had it built in 1891 of local Red Mahogany (Eucalyptus resinifera). It was restored in the 1980s, with much work needed, especially on the foundations, but also the roof and verandahs.

You can wander through its timber panelled rooms for free; most have historic exhibitions on display. The light fittings are beautiful. ornate yet simple. The whole house gives one a vivid sense of the craftsmanship and solid materials used then.

With its many chimneys, of course most rooms have a fireplace. I am reminded of our 1895 house/police station at Minmi near Newcastle, which had five chimneys, each serving two fireplaces back-to-back. but they had marble fireplace surrounds and mantelpieces and were closed in with a metal face and a small grate.

Roto House has been hugely enlivened by the establishment of a café, Home at Roto. You can eat on the verandahs, at the picnic tables in the peaceful tree-studded grounds, or under the covered café addition. They also run special events, be it poetry or music, often with open microphone, adding culture to the charm of being in a building from a bygone era.

At the risk of sounding like a tourism spruiker, this has become my favourite coffee place; so un-modern and un-citified, where history meets nature.

Roaming ‘round Roto

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I have been told there is a track through the bushland below historic Roto House. This being a grey and bleak day, the beach does not appeal for a walk, so I aim to find that track.

I don’t, but through a deliberate gap in a netting fence I do stumble on to a patch of soggy forest.

It seems to have become a repository for the drains of the surrounding houses and for rubbish from trespassers.

It is still interesting bush, with features like this Bird’s Nest fern, the epiphytic Asplenium nidus, very low to the ground.

But it is hard to negotiate the muddy bits. And I know I’m not supposed to be here.

I retrace my steps, try the next ‘No through road’ street and find I am at the edge of the Roto House grounds.

A path skirts the lawn and scattered trees that border the wilder part, which today is alive with birdsong.

The tree trunks and tops are beautiful. The koala hospital is nearby, so I keep hoping to see a wild one in these trees, but no luck.

There are patches of colour along the way, from these fungi and from wattle that is starting to bedeck many roadsides.

There is even a strangler fig, familiar to me from my many walks though Wingham Brush. This one also houses another Bird’s Nest fern.

I am going to poke more closely around Roto House…

Remembering Harry

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‘Harry’s Lookout’ was a simple clearing,  a place for hang gliders to launch from and gawkers like me and my family to embrace the view of ‘our’ little beach, Shelly Beach.

But that was decades ago. Harry is long gone and I know his work on the Lookout and his rough steps down to the beach have been ‘updated’.

Now I am so close I revisit that Lookout and vow to walk down Harry’s steps to the beach once more.

The first surprise is the Lookout area itself. Very arty, sort of Polynesian, no cobbled-together scraps as it was in Harry’s day.

The spot is still magnificent.

There is a small but quite superb birthday celebration happening  here.

I ask if there is any info up here about Harry and one young woman says, ‘I didn’t even know Harry was a real person’.

I assure them he was, still alive when my parents used to live not far away.

I head down the steps that Harry originally made. Back then they were in many colours, of whatever scraps of pipe or timber Harry could find. I recall lots of blue and yellow, and hand rails. No doubt they were kitschy and probably unsafe.

Now they are all uniform treated timber… and no handrails.

They are still best taken downhill rather than up.

Harry’s path takes you through some great rainforest and magically twisted tree trunks.

When I reach the beach, it is smaller than I recall, and of course Harry’s caravan is long gone. But I am so pleased to see that down here at least he is remembered.

I do recall Harry and his wife as likely the most sun-damaged people I have ever seen. I know Council later tried to evict them but public support for one of our last true eccentrics saved them.

Now there are several memorials to him. One is a timber statue, complete with mayoral medallion.

Harry’s van was beyond the most visited part, where the cars park and the brush turkeys pushily patrol the picnic tables.

It’s busy even today, a windy winter Sunday.

There is a wonderfully varied and detailed testimony to Harry’s life set in a helix in the sand. 

I am happy he is immortalised here, but regret that there is no such information up the top. Or did I miss it?

That lookout and those steps were a huge labour of love: rough and ready and free, un-OHS, un-arty, unauthorised, but so personal and indicative of a time now past.

Vale Harry.

Port peace

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Today I dared my first beach walk, after a week flu-bound indoors, basically doing nought but coughing and sleeping.

The beach was pretty empty, although several fishermen were risking the rocks.

The rocks along the Port Macquarie coast are quite harsh and unfriendly in appearance. They are not foot- or hand- friendly either. Such a contrast with the gentle continuous swell that they edge.

There are many scattered ‘rocklets’  creating lacy patterns and sinuous swirls of their own.

There were very few remnant patterns from the tide, but I don’t know the moods of this beach yet.

As this cliff and this beach are close to many flats and houses, I wonder about the content of the drips on several rock faces, where the liquid is like caramel topping, not water.

I am pleased to see a healthy banksia with candles all a-glow, but mainly the beach itself claims my attention.

I sit on the edge of a sandbank and admire the tenacious grass runners. Not much evidence of crab activity, as I was used to at Dunbogan but then I am late here today.

It’s not a dog beach. There are just a few determined walkers, doing the length and back.

I feel so relaxed I could sleep on the sand.

Trying to understand why there is such a sense of peace here, I finally get it.

There are no vehicle tracks, no 4WD scourings, just the tidemarks…

Just Nature.

Port prelude

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Well, I am finally fully moved to my new home, albeit with too many things to fit into a much smaller place. The local op shops have received a great deal of the overflow.

I had not had time to check out my nearby walks, which will often be on the coast.

Of course I was first drawn to the closest thing to a mountain: Nobby Head. I read it is only 30 metres high, but it will have to do.

Being an early riser, I hurried up the hill to catch the sunrise, always a miracle.

It wasn’t even 7am, but clearly the dog owners here are earlier risers than I am. The small Nobbys Beach where I had imagined walking was criss-crossed with paw and people prints. There were people busily walking down to it, along it and up from it. Before work, I suppose.

Some had more than one dog.

So the dog beach won’t be my beach.

And I was made aware that Port Macquarie is a much more citified town, as very few folk responded to my ‘Morning’ or my smile.

I climbed up my ‘mountain’, despite a wet and slippery track, much eroded. There is no view from the top, and it does not feel like a mountain, even a miniature one.

I saw other indications of too many people and too little respect for history or nature. The monument at the top was covered in graffiti. It was meant to commemorate Henry Gardiner, who had died in 1874 trying to save a friend’s life in the sea just below here. Both perished. 

Where was the respect for them?

The vegetation still held natives like the lilli-pilli I could see, but under so much of the invasive asparagus fern that it was almost buried.

It was all rather sad. I’ll be leaving this beach to the dogs and their dutiful owners. The mandatory and multitudinous pairings struck me as quite odd; what would an alien think of this society?

But I have found somewhere else nearby to explore… and to introduce you to next post.

Natural pinks

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The glory of a very pink sunset and its reflections in the Camden Haven River were a treat. The deep blue additions seemed like punctuation marks.

Although some of that blue cohort seemed more like questing creatures, hurrying forward against that stunning still backdrop bank of pink.

As the colour faded, their southern rush was echoed by a higher golden compatriot, aiming to leap over the blue bars.

Fanciful?  Yes, but such an ephemeral show invited fancies.  Better than facts at present…

At home the cascades of several varieties of Schlumbergera cacti were showing a fine range of pinks in their abundant flowers, from pearly pales to cyclamen deeps.

I would usually say I don’t actually like pink much, but I applaud these.

Farewell to Wayfarer

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At low tide, the rescued boat is unable to float, sitting askew on the mudflats.

It is early morning and the sky and its gentle colours and reflections take all the attention for the moment. But up close, this slanted and stranded boat offers its name as ‘Wayfarer’.  I wonder where it had journeyed as a wayfarer, and if it would again.

Its exposed underside tells me it had sat on the muddy bottom of the river for some time.

Its deck is as colourful as the sky, worthy of contributing to the reflections before the mudflats halt them.

Not that my solo heron minds the low tide; all the better for finding breakfast. 

I then learnt that Wayfarer is to be dragged ashore and broken up; she is not salvageable, having sat for about five years on the bottom. Her masts had already been taken down.

She will definitely no longer go a-wayfaring…

River residents

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My recent walk to the river boat ramp offered the surprise of a new resident: a resurrected boat, muddied and somewhat askew, plainly pulled up from a watery depth greater than it was built to inhabit.

From the mangrove edges the more usual resident ducks were heading out through the reflections and ripples, and creating their own silver trails.

As they passed the salvaged boat I thought how much better adapted they were to this   river, to water. It was crippled, useless to do aught but stay afloat: they belonged.

There were actually four of these handsome ducks; I loved the way their reflections paddled with them, double hooked.

I had expected the other inhabitants here to be solo, as was usual. My pelican was indeed the only one on the oyster stacks, but I later realised it had a companion– a shag?

Not sure why I always see solo creatures so often — mirroring me? — but here was my solo seagull, and yes, standing on one leg…

The sole watchful heron picked its delicate way through the exposed mangrove flats as it sought its tucker. And while I have seen more than one seagull or pelican elsewhere, I have not seen multiple herons.

I have taken many photos of Dooragan reflected in the river at all times of day, but to see it reflected in watery mud was new.

As I am moving from here soon, I am relishing all glimpses of the many moods of the river and the mountain…