Landscapes

A tourist in town

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Salso’s most opulent building is the Berzieri Thermal Spa, unfortunately not operational, nor in fact even open for me to see its reputed wonders. A temple to Art Nouveau, the images of its interiors look wonderful and I would really love to see them.  Built from 1913-1923, it is meant to resemble an oriental palace or a grand casino. Maybe that’s why I find the outside over-the-top — I am not charmed.

I did sit at the café opposite to ponder on its famous facade and attempt my first ordering of a coffee on my own. I did this partly because my friend Paola had warned me that there are no public toilets in Italy but that every bar/café must have one. The ordering was not a success, as I ended up with two cups of coffee: one the cappuccino without froth and the other the double espresso I had meant to be included… must be the wrong accent, the emphasis… or just a most non-Italian coffee wish.

But there was a toilet…

Of more interest to me was the ornate Scotti Well Cage; the well was one of many that once drew the hot mineral laden waters to the surface. Only one spa now operates in Salso but it is intentionally therapeutic, not recreational; not the sort of spa we Australians are used to, either basically coming straight out of the ground as at Pilliga or harnessed for the local pool as at Blackall or Moree.

A building that did have charm for me was the much smaller Warowland. It had been built as an art gallery but became a home. Its functions now include that of the Tourist Information Centre. The graffito plaster walls are highly decorated inside and out with fine painted patterns and I wonder that artisans can still be found to maintain them.

I had been directed to it as ‘the yellow building’. I did know the word ‘giallo’ for yellow, but there are many shades of yellow.

My first wrong call turned out to be the local Council Chambers. I am wondering if the warm colours of the buildings are partly because in the snowy cold winters the town needs the visual warmth.

Next to it was a building of yet another shade of yellow.  A scooter and a pushbike were parked nearby; I have noted that many of the bicycle riders are older women and they do not wear helmets. It is apparently a rarely enforced law.

A murkier shade of yellow adorns a private home in the town, but it is enlivened with the riot of potted flower colour and the gay green curtains.

I am agog at so much here that I am going to do more posts per week than usual to keep up with my fascination. Coming with me?

Stepping to Salso

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My head is finally clear from the 21-hour torture of the plane trip but actually it is still spinning… from the differences in place and culture and language in which I am to be immersed for two months.

I am staying with my friend Paola at her mother’s house in the hills above Salsomaggiore Terme, which is a most beautiful town in the region of Emilio Romagna, so recently flooded in its lower areas. It is a town of leafy trees, parks and plazas, narrow streets and wide avenues, of boutique shops and cafés, of buildings quaint or grand.

My usual readers will not be surprised that the first photo I took here was not of the grand view above, but of a detail: a public rubbish bin. Apparently of ancient beauty, but of modern design, make and function.

The walk down to the town is via steep paved steps, bordered by weeds like the orange papavera poppies I had seen growing wild by the train line from the airport to Milan station. Even the stones in the edging drains here are aesthetically laid, diagonally. 

Naturally the walk back up is more of a strain; I could choose to follow the longer winding road instead. Italians drive on the other side of the road, very fast, and often one-handed, as, if in company, they are usually speaking — also fast — which necessitates gesticulating.

From the train I had also remarked on the many abandoned large farmhouse complexes, old and partly vine covered, in the midst of fields. People prefer to live near services now I am told. Yet on my walk down to Salso I pass quite a few mansions similarly falling into disrepair.

The first was Poggio Diana, once a sort of resort, a nightclub, a place of hospitality, of dancing and fun, with a pool and overgrown tennis courts below. I fall in love with the windows, the shapes, the shutters, and begin to feel the sadness of history’s changes. I think of the Hydro Majestic at Katoomba…

The road runs below the large tree-filled grounds of half-hidden, once grand villas. I think I see the one I want to rescue most. I am told many were built by owners of vineyards elsewhere in the region to take advantage of the higher air and the thermal spas, as the latter were the reason for Salsomaggiore Terme’s establishment.

Armies of gardeners would be needed for any of these, like this imposing rare one clearly still used by its wealthy owners.

Of course most Italians do not live in grand villas, or even separate houses, but in apartments, and I love that so many beautify them with flowers, roses and geraniums especially.

Most of the houses I do see are tall and narrow; colour abounds, particularly yellow. The house where I am staying is of three levels; I am in the attic.

I am getting used to tiles, and stairs, and even Italian TV. The latter is overly glamorous, bright and lively and I now better understand why the Eurovision Song Contest is so glitzy. But it is a good way to learn Italian…

Tia up close

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From the little bridge across Tia Creek above the Falls, you can see the water weeds waving gently with the current of the mysteriously cloudy water.

Slightly above that the water is more calm, the banks higher. I keep an eye out for platypus, as they have been seen here, but I have no luck.

Like the slopes of the Gorge itself, the scattered creekside rocks are aslant, rough and layered.

Several sorts of lichen choose to adorn a few, softening them visually at least.

On the longer Tiara Walk, the post-fire tree regeneration is the main feature, apart from the views over the Gorge, of course.

Such glimpses never fail to astonish me; so close, so extreme, and here I am meandering along the top beside it, as if the land extended safely forever.

But in between, my attention keeps being drawn to the bright new growth of some of the young trees, glowing like firelight amidst all the black and grey.

Others are purple and magenta on the backs of the new leaves, commanding attention with their colours before the mature sage green.

Hard to keep watching where I walk, to avoid tripping, amidst so much to see. \

But I do; a fall when bushwalking, especially when on your own, is no fun… as I learnt at Gibraltar National Park!

Beyond trees

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The woodland edging Tia Gorge is scrawny, still struggling to regrow after the fires.The top branches of most remain twiggy claws.

Yet one subzero morning those bare claws were transformed, silver-coated, sparkling like crystals as the sun hit them.

At first I was unsure what I was seeing. Frost to the treetops? On the tin roof of the one structure at the camping ground, the longdrop toilet, the melting frost did not sound like raindrops, but small hail. Then shards of ice began skidding onto the cement floor as they were loosened by the sun from their high perches.

Grwing up in a coastal hinterland valley, I had seen plenty of hard ground frosts, but not tree-high ones, so this was a new experience for me.

How lucky to be here for such an event; common for locals no doubt, but like magic for me. A wave of the wand and …  filigree silver above me!

The many dead trees had other ways of making themselves beautiful, like bedecking themselves with fluffy lichen, dainty as pear blossom.

Even the now defunct epicormic tufts of shoots that had appeared from under the blackened bark after the fires were decorative. This was one tree that they did not manage to save.

And, never least, fungi! A whole colony, white to cream to amber, studded this single rough-barked elder.

Diversity and beauty in survival, despite clearly devastating bushfires, in this tablelands woodland.

Might and majesty

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To stand at the top of this gorge and look out across its deep and sharply plunging core is to marvel at the power of Nature.

In fact, I found the Tia Falls Gorge intimidating. Not just the vertiginous drop, certainly the subject of nightmares for the height-fearing like me, but the scale of it, tipped and eroded over millennia.

It’s in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, along the Great Escarpment, 35 km towards the coast from Walcha. This Park also has a small and basic camping area, a calm domestic oasis not far from the edge of all that drama. It seems incongruous to be sleeping and cooking while that is going on behind me.

Yet the tablelands graziers of yore have cleared almost to the edge of this gorge. I wonder how many cattle or sheep mistook their footing at the edge and went over to their deaths. Or cattlemen on horseback, for that matter…

I stay well back from the edges where there are no fences, feeling the pull, imagining the crumbling rocky edges hidden beneath the clumps of grass.

The Falls drop and drop and drop, not wide, but fast and far.

So this small Tia Creek winds its way through the cleared paddocks, steady, not rushing, until it begins to feel the momentum. A few mini rapids occur.

And then a final pool, still up here on our level.

And over it goes: Tia Creek becomes Tia Falls. No turning back from the abyss.

Water based

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With the rain we have had on the coast, the paperbark swamps are filling again and the reeds are extremely vigorous. Their grey-green clumps make fabulous vertical contrasts against the less constrained shapes and paler colours of the trees.

So unconstrained are the paperbarks that these two appear to be dancing with each other, hands almost touching, bodies bent as if inclined to do so too.

Some of the older trees have gone full out for individuality of shape, declining verticality and choosing the horizontal.

Beside one swamp on the Coast walk I could see a different reed, feathery, more free form.

I realise it is one I have seen in Kattang, but it confused me by growing taller here.  Baloskian tetraphyllum, Tassel cord reed.

As I remember by impressions rather than botanical details, I am easy to fool!

Autumn bush blooms

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Not expecting to see many flowering plants on my latest Coast walk, these beauties surprised me: Epacris pulchella, or Coral Heath.

Unsurprisingly, ‘pulchella‘ means ‘beautiful’.

It’s a sandy walk where Flannel Flowers are massed like guards of honour in their season, but right now their greyish foliage is mere backdrop for this elegant Epacris.

And there were quite a few shrubs of this spiky-leaved wattle, Acacia ulicifolia, Prickly Moses or Juniper Wattle. Notably, it carried blooms  at all stages and colours, rather like the Banksias do.

However, the dominant flowers were not at eye or ground level, but high up, as these Melaleuca trees (quinquenervia, I think) are in massed bloom everywhere on the coast here.

Their scent is powerful and pervasive, although to me it smells like some deep-fried battered takeaway food! The Rainbow Lorikeets are going noisily crazy over the feasts on offer.

Not flowers, but the strikingly bright fruit on this small tree caught my eye. There were only a few bunches like this, so not really obvious.

The knowledgeable folk on the NSW Native Plants Identification Facebook group, who identified the first two flowers here for me, also tell me this is Elaeodendron australe, or Red olive berry.

It’s a group well worth joining if native plants are your passion!

Patterns

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The endless variety of patterns that sea and sky and sun can create mean one must always keep a sharp eye out for the ephemeral combination they may offer.

As each wave recedes, I am mesmerised by these fleeting puffs of sand, ringed with bubbles like smoke rings. What causes them?

Equally inexplicable to me are the convoluted circles of lace patterns in the waves’ foamy wash, seemingly unrelated to rocks.

Or these club-handed clouds, offering what, beseeching whom?

I love the patterning made by Horsetail Casuarinas, drooping gracefully in fine line silhouette. I also love the shade they offer…

While I love mirror-like reflections, I appreciate these artfully broken reflections as the tide ripples up this creek.

Pair the magic of light through leaves with still water and you have incomparable patterns. 

I drink in all these chance pairings, and hope I never fully lose my sight, for to be deprived of all these beauties would be a loss indeed…

Celebrating trunks

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Trees are determined survivors. Their trunks will grow around a lightning strike or a bush fire burn … and just keep heading up, with diminished resources.

And if they do not survive, they can become objects of sculptural beauty and home to vivid lichens.

Some trees choose not to head upwards, but outwards, unsure whether they want to be part of the river or the bank.

Planted in rows en masse in a state forest, their trunks offer changing patterns of light and shade.

I know bamboos are grasses, not trees, but you can’t call their hefty ‘stems’ other than trunks. 

Clumplng bamboo like this never fails to impress me with its sheer size and solidity… and how useful a material it is!

And when it’s the yellow variety, it makes a veritable clump of golden poles.

Even tiny trunks give vertical definition to low growing plant treasures like the shy Maidenhair ferns on this bank.

While seemingly growing in rocks, this young Casuarina is already adapting to the river’s changing flows, growing south with it in floods and then recovering to head skyward.

I wish it luck.

River gold

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As the sun sets here, I am more attracted to the patterns and colours it adds to the river and the edging mangrove mudflats than to the sky itself. I have noticed that my eye keeps being drawn more to earth than sky, be it sunrise or sunset, beach or bush.

As usual, I find there’s a solitary bird poking about, to add interest to my photo.

I wasn’t sure what this one was until it turned sideways and showed off its S-bend neck ability: a White-faced Heron.

Of course there is always a stately solo Pelican, here cruising the wind-ruffled water amongst the oyster beds.

Taking my eyes off the gilded river, in the shallows by the mangroves I spy what looks like an Egret, snow-white and solitary, as expected. The now nearby Heron keeps its distance.

But I admit I am as taken by the sunset’s transforming impact on birdless mudflats, with the black nursery spikes of the mangroves punctuating the dimpled grey mud and accentuating the gold wash beyond, where oyster bed posts give both horizontal and vertical definition.

I’ve seen far more spectacular sunsets here, but every change in the light offers new interest to me, always worth closer inspection.

Morning mates

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As my readers know, I am a sucker for a solitary seagull. Now I am unsure if it is the same seagull who accompanies me on my morning seaside walks, but I like to think it is. This one certainly admires the sunrise as much as I do, basking in the wonders that a few clouds can create at this serendipitous moment.

The sight is stupendous, even sans seagull, changing every second. The constantly renewed ruff of foam edging the mirror of the wet sand is such a neat visual touch that it is hard to consider it ‘normal’. As the sun rises higher, side-on, up close, the foam bubbles sparkle with iridescence, but I can’t capture their tiny rainbows with my camera.

The clouds shift and suddenly a sky monster on the move glares at me from its baleful eyes.

Not solitary, these terns are watching the unfolding sunrise too, with the reflected craggy vertical face of the headland laid out flat, neatly ruled, in front of them.

As always, the fascinating details of how the tide has receded are written in the sand. These sturdily defined chevrons on the edge of the sand rise are new to me.

So are these scallops; not appearing as ripples, but a series of separate pulses of patterns.

Not keen on scalloped designs? How about herringbone?

Is there any pattern not originating in nature?

Well, yes. I rarely see anyone else down here at this early hour, but a solitary walker with a stick leaves a distinct trail as he passes me. It would have puzzled me had I not seen it being made, and would no doubt have inspired an unlikely flight of fancy…

Sea morning

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Sometimes my morning walks are lucky enough to strike a magical combination of sea, sunrise, and sky … and in this instance, a lone seagull.

The seagull flew away, but the rest of the cast soon moved into a different and more brooding scene.

Even where the clouds neared the land and broke into fluffy cotton wool balls, they gave a brief but spectacular show of reflections each time just after a wave receded, leaving a wet mirror surface on the sand. A single fisherman the only other witness…

But he walked to his fishing spot. 

Unfortunately, my pleasure in Nature’s spectacle is always ruined by the man-made eyesore of 4WD tracks, not made by fishermen seeking a spot further up this long beach, but just joyriding, using/abusing the beach as a driving range for their big boys’ toys because they are allowed to. The Port Macquarie Hastings Shire seems especially weak in this respect.

I can only wish much rust their way…!