Peregrinations

Carabeen walk

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If you like tree ferns as I do, there were so many on the drive into Cobcroft picnic area in Werrikimbe National Park that it was a treat.

At the car parking area, this yellow flowering small tree/shrub was new to me; I’d assumed it would be a yellow version of the white Ozothmanus that was plentiful in the area. But the boffins tell me it’s actually Cassinia telfordii.

The short Carabeen Walk takes me through a lush forest of eucalypts like Blue Gums, and tree ferns.

There are two sorts of tree ferns, the rough (Cyathea australis) and the soft (Dicksonia antarctica), both present in this forest. This spectacular old trunk is so decorated with mosses that I can only assume it is a rough trunked one underneath. I love the little rabbit’s foot pads on its trunk.

The walk is named for the Yellow Carabeen trees that dominate the wetter areas of its scope.

The sinuous buttresses of this species can extend from two to five metres up its trunks.

Vines and clinging ferns climbing up the trees are common.

The track has become narrow, and is not always easily distinguishable, with many fallen branches that I climb over or skirt around.

Hoary-footed old trees are a reminder that these slow-growing Carabeens have been making this forest for a very long time.

The young ones seem slender in comparison.

And it wouldn’t be a typical rainforest post for me without at least one sprinkling of fungi.

For the first time I also collected some leeches on this walk; as they were mainly on my hands, perhaps they got aboard when I hung on to fallen branches as I clambered over them. I react badly to them – physically – so the bites refreshed my memories of that walk for a week afterwards!

But the walk was worth it.

Seeking the shy platypus

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From Mooraback campground in Werrikimbe National Park I take the walk to follow the little creek to seek platypuses/platypi in its larger pools.

But it is a very hot day and this walk passes through open paddock flat land before it reaches the first rocky hill. You can see the little creek at the base of those rocks.

From the 1830s until it became a National Park in 1975, this land was farmed, often for dairy cattle. A succession of families tried to make a go of it and the introduced trees, remnant orchards and paddocks remain obvious signs of settlement.

A few kangaroos keep watch as I trudge past, heading for the shade of that hill and its trees, where it has been too hard and rocky to clear or cultivate.

Telltale green denotes domestic survivors; I spot apple and plum trees.

I keep an eye on the creek wherever the walk takes me near it, but the water is murky and the sun is high. I am not here at the preferred ends of the day where a shy platypus might be out and about.

On the way I see some plants I don’t recognise, like this sole bush with its red stems and pretty white raggedy blossoms. The boffins tell me it is Prostanthera lasianthos.

I had been bypassing the many small lilac flowers in the grass by the track, appreciative, but dismissing them as the familiar Wahlenbergia. But then I realised that the flowers on these clumps were different — a single pendant lilac petal with a white eye.

The boffins sent me to PlantNet where I learn it is Slender Violet-bush (Hybanthus monopetalus). ‘Monopetalus’: one petal!

A lilac flower I do recognise is this Purple Flag (Patersonia occidentalis). They are as shy as a platypus, and daintily disposed amongst the tough grasses on this stony hill.

After my last walk and post, I now know the Grass Trigger-plant, of which there are plenty here, but am delighted to spot this caterpillar. I wonder what it will become?

I reach the mid-point of the Platypus walk, and the larger pools, but see no platypus. It is almost noon; too hot to venture out: ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ as Noel Coward sang… and me … but not the smarter platypus.

On the way back I see one plant with which I am very familar, as it surprised me (and Ludwig Leichhardt, incidentally) at my Mountain with its beauty: the Pink Hyacinth Orchid (Dipodium variegatum). Showing no leaves, no sign of its existence, most of the time, when it would suddenly send up its thick stem, usually in summer, it was always a treat for me. And then the showy burgundy-speckled pink flower!

So while I didn’t see a platypus, probably due to my poor timing, I did see some special plants.

But the main impression of this walk was a sadness, brought on by the remnants of its settlement time; all those families striving to beat this high and often harsh climate, making a life for their families for a time, and then having to move on. I don’t know if they cleared the paddocks or if they were natural, with the bracken-covered slopes above them more likely, so I won’t blame them for that; I can only empathise with those lives of hard work.

Yet I am determined to see a platypus, so I will return and set out on that walk at a sensible time!

Gentle Boorganna

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If you’ve never been up to the Comboyne Plateau, you have a treat in store. It’s high and green and often wet; I have never forgotten being told as a child that it got six feet of rain a year. At the time I lived on the Central Coast and I knew we got four feet of rain a year, so that was a vivid comparison for me.

I have now been there many times, noting the sign to Boorganna Nature Reserve, but never stopping to investigate it.

Now I have.

Boorganna is a gentle, special place, long ago put aside for us to wander down through its rainforest, along its leafy, rock-edged paths. There are plenty of informative signs on the way, about the forest, its buttressed and giant trees, and its inhabitants.

Most life goes on above us, green and lush and multi-storied, with twisting vines and clinging creepers and giant bird’s nest ferns all competing for the light.

When this forest giant fell, the path was sensibly cut into its girth. reinforcing its size in the minds of us small humans.

Not all the giants have fallen; this Brush Box is estimated to be as much as a thousand years old.

From the foot-stand slits in some of the big stumps, other giants were not so lucky to survive.

I reach the Rawson Falls Lookout, but decide not to continue to the base of the Falls, mindful that while it has all been a gentle wander downhill, the way back uphill will not feel so gentle on my knees.

As always, my eye is taken by details: I love that the fence at the Lookout is as spotted and bearded with lichen as the nearby trees.

I can look down more safely going uphill, and see delights I missed, like this absolute cornucopia of pale fungi.

Or these few strange papery cup fungi … and is that tiny stem in front a baby one?

There are many logs bedecked with fungi imitating fallen leaves … or potato crisps? I love that Nature does not restrict their artistic licence in design.

But of course, being a rainforest, green and ground matters dominate.

Boorganna offers the lot.

Where rocks rule

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Cathedral Rocks National Park is of course a mecca for rock lovers.

But rocks ain’t just rocks, impressive though they be; they are also habitat, as here, for mosses and lichen and orchids.

Individual rocks – or should I call such big ones ‘boulders’? — exhibit very particular features, like this one, which sports a kind of centurion helmet.

The majority of them sit calmly in credible piles, moss-capped and comfortably non-threatening.

Other clumps are incredible in their composition; now how or why does that rock balance as it does?

My hesitancy in climbing higher towards the summit of Cathedral Rocks is not helped by having to pass so close to huge boulders so precariously perched above me. The balance has to give at some point… erosion may be slow, but it’d be just my luck to be there when it reaches that tipping point.

I can see the Woolpack Rocks in the distance, and I know I managed to get to the top of those on another trip, from a different campground.

But here I give up at this point, while my more intrepid friend continues. I am not a rock-climber — a crevasse bridger, a knee scraper, a leg stretcher — and this is enough of a view for me.

It is more the closeup subtleties of the rocks and their accompanying plants that I am most interested in. I just wish I could read the distinct hieroglyphs that the moss and lichen form. Can’t be random…

Occasionally, I can; I mean this is clearly a heart, right?

And even if the plants don’t speak to me, the boulders give me an ephemeral treat in providing a canvas for shadow play — which would not have been evident amongst the undergrowth otherwise.

Thanks, for so many reasons, for rocks!

High country Nature

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I greatly enjoyed the recent Dorrigo Bluegrass and Folk Festival, but afterwards I needed a quiet bush break.

As it was so close, I headed for Cathedral Rocks National Park, but stopped in at the refurbished Ebor Falls Lookout, just off the main road.

Fitted out with new cliff-skirting concrete paths and metal railings, it would gladden the heart of any OHS observer. And yes, I know the paths were aimed to be wheelchair- and walker-friendly.

In a way, the tourist-oriented features detracted from the wildness whose viewing they facilitated.

But not much, once I looked over those railings. In fact, they emphasised that wildness by that very contrast.

For me the best part of any falls is always the point where a calm stream becomes the dramatic drop that we all goggle at. Here a fisherman is trying his luck just upstream from that point.

And dramatic they are!

The organ pipe rock formations of the cliffs are equally stunning. Formed around 19 million years ago, when the cooling lava from the Ebor Volcano created these vertical contraction cracks, they are part of the ancient Demon Fault Line.

At the base of those cliffs was a very noticeable localised group of bright green, which has been identified as Tree Ferns, likely Dicksonia antarctica. Great to see them recovering after the fires here.

The imposing Upper Falls are followed downstream by the narrower Lower Falls.

Beyond them the creek heads into the wonderful rugged wilderness of this high country.

I think its wild expanse is why I love it so much. 

Grand Gorge country

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The Oxley Wild Rivers National Park on our tablelands has spectacular gorges, and usually equally spectacular waterfalls, although the drought has rendered most of the latter mere long narrow threads of water, if even visible.

My first glimpse was from Long Point campground, a small and satisfyingly empty one at the end of a long dirt road.

The Cassinia Walk passed along the edge of the gorge, through a literal forest of these tall plants, which were mostly not flowering yet. I don’t know which Cassinia they are, as the ranger I asked said they were weeds…

The other thing I asked about was the name of these trees, with their dramatically mottled bark. I was told they were Spotted Blue Gum, which I can’t find, and, given the Cassinia mislead, I can’t trust. But it would seem that Spotted Gums themselves do sometimes have such large blotches.

My next camp was at Wollomombi Falls. Stranded pools could be seen way down below.

The ‘Falls’ were barely running enough to fall.

The creek that fed them was as weedy as watery.

A very beautiful wattle, indigenous to these gorges, was in bloom everywhere here: Gorge Wattle, (Acacia ingramii).

As always, I found the lichen bedecking dead shrubs to be as attractive as any flowers.

When lichen lies along a branch like a hoary basking lizard, I am entranced…

Survival at Girraween

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Girraween National Park, just over the border into Queensland, is all about rocks, large and small, in domes and sheets. From the camping area, the Pyramid  looms large and challenging.

Nobody will be surprised that I did not make it to the top; instead I got to a point where I felt I could see enough of a view and the clamber ahead felt too scary for me. I’d have had to crawl…

Each morning this young magpie would wake me with its full throttle joyous carolling. Eastern Grey kangaroos grazed heedlessly all around the campgrounds, but I considered them almost domesticated. In general, I found that there were too many people and not enough wildlife. Maybe flush toilets should be my indication…

Yes, there were incredibly huge boulders balanced in preposterous positions, and many evocatively shaped and fissured rocks.

I was more taken with the many effects water has had on the rocks, in waved patterns as it had run over sheets of rock or down the sculpted sides of the creeks.

Trees and shrubs here seem to grow as best they can, taking advantage of any crack where soil or water might accumulate, their roots snaking along until they find easier purchase. One was doing the splits to achieve this.

I certainly fulfilled my need for grey-green, but also was drawn to the strange bright orange and red shades of the many hanging bunches of mistletoe and the honey-gold flowers on the low growing casuarinas.

Wattles were blooming everywhere and some wildflowers were out, but this time my attention was elsewhere.

At Bald Rock National Park, my next stay, everything competed for attention, as you will see…!

Nîmes nostalgia

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This will be my last post from my travels. I could have done many more and will surely keep finding things I had wanted to share, but I thank those of you who have stuck with me.

I’d have to say that I was most impressed by the attention to what Roman relics remain… like this, preserved out the back of the very modern museum, in a garden of the typical plants of the time, especially aromatic ones.

Or this, one of the two surviving main gates of the old Augustan walled town: 1st century, kept on what are now main streets.

I also loved the charm of the later old streets and apartments, with their wrought iron balcony railings; this one was unusual in having a decorative upper trim, like a metal picot edge.

Where I stayed was a delight, with three French windows and aged blue shutters, right above a lively street, with buskers and bands, street stalls and crowded cafés. Being in the old town, no vehicle traffic… except for the small garbage trucks, collecting by hand in the wee hours.

I saw a lot from my front row seat. 

Just across the way, in the next little street, was a church which ran a soup kitchen once a week.

Nîmes was busy with shoppers for the many boutique offerings… but also regular beggars.

Although I had the wonderful big Les Halles covered market close by, I also went to this one on my last Friday. I loved that stallholders were by now answering my questions, asked in my Aussie French, with floods of French, so it can’t have been too awful…

I could have stayed in France just to eat… the great variety of crusty breads in different flours; the aged cheeses with crusts like rocks and tastes I will forever miss.

There were many marvels in the museums, while not answering all my questions.

The Museum of Old Nîmes was unsatisfactory as to how and why and if ‘serge de Nîmes’ became the ‘denim’ of Levi-Strauss jeans.  

The old wardrobes made me wonder how anyone slept in a room with such overly decorated monstrosities.

The Museum of Fine Arts had an amazingly intact Roman mosaic floor, discovered in the 19th century and relaid here. I noted that while the central piece is figurative, the rest is geometric, including several Escher-like patterns.  Was there anything creative they had not thought of?

I enjoyed this Museum, but did wonder why the 18th century painters gave Cleopatra a perpetual wardrobe malfunction. No matter who she was meeting, like Mark Antony, she seemed unable to stop her dress slipping to expose a boob. Those handmaidens need talking to… 

I come home with a head full of new understandings and images, so I thank the friends who made this trip possible, this experience of a lifetime, surreal though it seems in retrospect.

City of water

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To replace the ancient water sources that had supplied Nîmes for centuries, the huge Fountain Gardens were built in the mid-18th century. 

Remnants are still there of the original water holding basin on the hill, which would have received the water via aqueducts, including the Pont du Gard where I will take you next. As these remnants, like those at Pompeii, are extremely rare, I tried to visit, but it was closed on a Sunday.

Fountains abound, with walkways shaded by large plane trees.

Fish and ducks and pigeons make use of the water, as does the occasional frolicking dog, and once I even saw a swan.

Even the gates are guarded from climbing trespassers by decorative extensions – rather more attractive than rolled barbed wire.

My favourite ruin was this Temple of Diana, from the 1st century BC: possibly not to Diana, possibly not even a temple. Romantically shrouded in mystery and time…

The central basin has this Nymph statue… with attendant pigeon, but as usual I wonder why the wingless cherubs below look so miserable.

This one looked positively demonic.

The Gardens were full of statues, but I especially liked this gentle one to Love… quite young love too.

From the formal pools and waterways, paths wind up through a shady forest to the 36 metre high Tour de Magne, once part of the defensive Roman walls around the city.

I had intended to climb up the internal spiral stairs, but I chickened out. From the outside, looking up at those who had made it, I knew I’d been wise. Bugger the view.

But even away from the Fountain Gardens, in the centre of main avenues there is water, shallow, unpretentious, just coolly flowing along.

Sometimes, as in the modern Place d’Assas, it is combined with statuary, non-mythological, but still symbolic.

Nîmes still appreciates its water origins. So do I.

Temples then and now

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Considered one of the best preserved and most elegant of the Corinthian temples, this 1st century homage to the Augustan imperial cult was built from local limestone. It has been known as the Maison Carrée since the XVIth century.

The columns of the impressive portico, 17 metres high to the gable, are freestanding, whereas those along the side are half embedded in the walls. Only priests of the cult were allowed in; any major events and sacrifices were done outside, in the large public forum space.

Under the portico you can see the naturalistic acanthus leaves atop each column. Out of the weather, this limestone is immaculate.

Exposed, the stone has not fared so well, but after 2000 years, you’d have to say the damage is only cosmetic and minor; the columns still do their job.

And on the enormously high timber doors, a key escutcheon like no other I will ever see…

Immediately across the square is the 1993 Museum of Modern Art, designed to echo the Maison Carrée… but somehow failing to carry that same sense of grandeur outside.

Inside it succeeds, being all light and space, with a huge atrium. It is the temple to Art, to connect the old and new Nîmes.

Modern paintings of vast size dominate each room.

I realise I should have known that I do not like what I see as the self-consciousness and self-indulgence of many of these periods.

I also realise that every museum or gallery I visit has an appointed guard or watcher in every single room.

Often young people, mostly looking bored, mostly wearing black, checking that I am not about to spray paint or throw tomatoes on a work. 

Except for my sandals squeaking a little on the parquet, the silence is deafening.

How do they spend a whole day like this?

Before Romans, and Before Christ

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I am on my way to the Musée de la Romanité, which I assume will be all about the Roman history of Nîmes. I am to be proven very wrong.

En route I pass the Pradier Fountain, only a few hundred years old. Carved in white marble in 1845 by James Pradier, it represents Nîmes itself, which came into being because of its water, with the four figures below standing for the four main water sources of Nîmes.

I am most interested in the lady atop. It is said that the sculptor’s mistress posed for this, but whoever she was, that is one sassy lady. Just look at her pose, unsmiling, hand on hip, with such upstanding breasts that they must surely have had help.

Her draperies are exquisitely rendered, and maybe the ‘so what’ stance is to counter the odd head-dress he has given her, a mini  Maison Carrée, the town’s famous Roman temple.

The Museum was eye-opening. Impressively Roman, as above… yes.

But I had no idea that so much history could be seen from the Pre-Roman era (800-100BC), when Gaulish people settled and thrived around the original spring, sacred to the god Nemoz, which became Nemausus under the Romans… and eventually gave the name of the Nîmes.

While the Roman era (27 BC – 400 AD) had the most appealing relics, this recreated hut from earlier times caught my eye with its ingenious door hinge, top and bottom dependent on nature for shape and strength. 

I found myself wondering what the heck we had achieved …apart from wrecking our one world … when maybe 2000 years ago the Romans were making such fine metal items as safety pins!  Yes, the glassware, the sculpture, the buildings, the infrastructures, were all admirable and incredibly lasting, despite the ‘progress’ of the centuries, but somehow those safety pins remain my symbol of ‘the French Rome’.

After the Romans came the Medieval era of Nîmes (1000-1500), the relics of which … to me …seemed less cultured and creative than those which came before.

This very modern building includes a roof garden, where I am impressed by the Mediterranean plantings, looking natural and coping as nature meant.

It is a fascinating museum, which took me back before the Romans and made me see their visible heritage here more clearly in its place in history.

Nîmes: history upon history

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While our First People are known to have an extremely long history of occupation, they trod so lightly that we newcomers cannot easily read that history. 

Not so here In Nîmes, where you walk up any of many streets and bang! right in front of you rises the imposing Arena, the best preserved Roman amphitheatre in the world.

They were setting up for a light and sound show that evening. How incredible for a 2000 year old venue to be still going!  Not that any gladiators would be seen here now, but the range of trained and very particular fighters was unknown to me until I read about them here.

Nîmes, considered the French capital of bullfighting, holds a three-day festival, the Feria, each year, with bull runs through the streets, acrobats, musicians, parades, stalls, horsemanship and of course, bullfights.

The Arena was carefully designed to allow for Roman social classes to access and exit which of the four levels they would occupy without a crush or running into the others.  It would seat 24,000.

Railings have been added but the stone seating remains the same. They were a bit of a stretch for a littlie like me.

I envisioned the hordes of tourists going up these steps tonight, the same steps that everyone since the Romans have used.

Just look at the width of the arch/wall… such huge blocks of stone.

Stones and bricks, and all still holding together.

This hole seemed deliberately done to show us that beneath the stone facing is a rubblestone wall?

Arches, arches everywhere… but I see no information as to who would have had to come up these steps from deep below 

I had expected more history, with Hollywood images of lions and Christians in my head; I will have to research more.

Just look at the narrow bricks in this arched roof. Gravity-defying yet perfectly logical…

The longevity of this craftsmanship, this knowledge and planning, makes a mockery of our gimcrack disposable modern buildings, unlikely to last 200 years, as our colonial ones have done, let alone 2000.

When I visit the attached museum, I am even more agog…