Norah Head

We had actually planned to go on a forest walk on this particular day, but alas, we awoke to a day which was rather bleak, to say the least. Grey, windy, drizzle....I thought I had been transported back to England. An obvious joke, I know. So we drove to Norah Head to walk around the lighthouse which was established in 1903. Veghead thought that we may get in a short walk if the sky cleared, but to no avail. The view over the ocean was awesome with all the white caps, and the spray over the rocks was pretty wild, but Spinneychick was getting damper by the minute and blustered about, which is really not great for the hair. I managed to collect some interesting bits that had been blown off the trees, and brought them home for a photo collage. Not much exercise today.

Katandra Circuit

Good day to you. This week's walk was to a place called the Katandra Reserve. What a lovely spot. The reserve is connected to the Rumbalara Reserve (which is basically our back yard) via the Mouat Walk, which Veghead has done, but Spinneychick has not. So this week we are quite close to home. The walk was filled with strangler figs. Some of them grow up trees or around boulders, and some, like this one on the left, grow around fallen logs. The log has rotted away and one is left with the 'Strangler Fig Tube', which is listed as one of the things to watch out for on the walk. We had experienced quite a lot of rain recently, so some of the walk was a bit muddy. Lucky we were wearing our hiking boots so this was not a problem. There were plenty of the gorgeous Angophora trees. So gnarly some of them, with smooth bark and twisted branches, and a pinkish-purple tinge to them. Spectacular. In the middle of the reserve is Seymour Pond, where many a pond dipping school excursion is undertaken, and indeed so was one on this day. LeStrange and KarateKid's primary school in Datchet took a minibeast hunt at Braywick Nature Reserve every year. It was great fun. Spinneychick always volunteered for this excursion because you get to scoop waterboatmen out of the pond with a net.

Strickland Falls and Cabbage Tree Loop

This week we headed off to Strickland State Forest, which is quite near home. The waterfall is pretty small but it gives you somewhere to walk to. This area of forest is filled with banksias, and in the wetter areas, cabbage-tree palms, hence the name of this week's glorious loop walk. Sometimes I take a lot of photos on our walks. Veghead doesn't seem to mind, although I worry that sometimes he must be thinking "there's not a lot of walking happening on this walk" but Spinneychick must have visual evidence to go along with the story. That yellow corally-looking thing is actually a fungus which was growing on the forest floor. I couldn't describe it with words. Awesome, isn't it. And those gnarly-barked banksias too. They're so lumpy. They need to be seen to be believed. Anyway, enough of that and on to something else. The scribbly bark trees for instance, which always remind me of snugglepot and cuddlepie. Apparently the scribbles are made by a bug crawling around under the bark of the tree before it falls off, but I prefer May Gibbs' idea that its the newspaper for the gumnet people. And have a gander at that tiny treelet growing straight out of the rock. Now if I didn't have a photo, you just wouldn't believe me, would you?