• About

snippetsandsnaps

~ Potato Point and beyond

snippetsandsnaps

Tag Archives: forest redgums

Monuments of nature

22 Sunday Jul 2018

Posted by morselsandscraps in Bingi Dreaming Track, photos

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

casuarinas, forest redgums, Gray Rocks to Mullimburra

Another weekend. Another segment of the Dreaming Track*. Another surprise.

Last time I walked this bit of the track from Gray Rocks to Mullimburra, it was some years ago through bee-buzzing tea-trees with my friend Rosemary. Today the beginning of the track is drab, although buds promise future glory. It’s paved with casuarina needles and lumpy with casuarina roots, astonishingly thick given the spindliness of the casuarinas themselves.

Everything is light and shadow, anathema to the camera. So I tackle a few closeups that turn out far better than I expected: a bit of old man’s beard in the fork of a dead casuarina branch, and the tiny brush-like female flower of the casuarina.

We walk beside a creek-bed, dry except for a large grey puddle.

Then J spots a eucalypt through the bush up the hill and sets off in pursuit. I dawdle on, remember he’s forgotten his phone (and the drama I caused when I stopped walking and lay down on a sand hill a few weeks ago), and turn back to join him, watching my feet as I stumble through lomandra, fallen branches and hunks of rock. I spot his blue jumper and find him sitting on a log, contemplating a grove of huge Eucalyptus tereticornis (forest red gum), at least two hundred years old at best guess. They twist their ancient branches, shed their bark and gleam grey and apricot in the midday light. We eat lunch cogitating how we could describe their beauty (and their characteristics) in a few sure lines, Picasso-in-words.

808EF542-949D-400F-8CF9-6E794CD40BF3
28E67A4B-1067-43EE-976D-94F00D53EF6D
20AF6139-2DA1-4532-9B2A-B14C6D2D1BAF
022CFAE8-C359-4DD4-B131-EC47AFFF8365
5546D032-5ED8-4B83-AEA4-18794E7F7113
FC5AE070-36F1-4A91-8006-CE36123AEF8C
2C239E65-6081-48F7-8725-8C019C74133F
0CCFC7E9-9DCB-4D59-92B5-04AE62F0873B
0466E01C-3C36-4D44-8039-2E7B7CF275C5
420B2D89-66D1-49A1-A5CA-9E59DF69E597
45555594-787F-426D-9631-F21746D977E7
FA35A7BF-4F67-4091-AAB3-B0EB5B506775

The trees by the track are more modest in size and age and they dance a corroboree of delight.

The walk ends with a water view, down to Cathedral Rock.

That is Saturday’s walk. On Sunday we return to the grove of forest red gums, ostensibly to find J’s specs which he’s lost somewhere, but more likely just to enjoy these monuments of nature again. We continue on, this time through casuarina forest: trunks, male flower, roots and needles all providing visual pleasures.

A tiny bell-like flower on a spiky bush catches my eye, and a hakea already budding

We pass an old dam and other traces of farming days, and then we’re at the ocean and a lagoon backing up beyond the sandbar, with traces of the sea evident amongst the rocks and sea grass.

A hardy casuarina has rooted itself in the rock, reclining comfortably and thriving, within cooee of the sea.

Behind the sandhills on a sidetrack on the way back to the car our final forest redgum for the weekend – and for a while. Next weekend will be full-on preparation for the arrival of Warsaw: nailing down errant boards on the deck; washing every bit of bedding I possess; spraying the yard with pyrethrum for ticks; restringing the clothesline. With Potato Point beach walks interspersed. And an omelette for any collaborators!

* Dreaming tracks or Song Lines link places visited by Aboriginal people: the Bingi Dreaming track links campsites, ceremonial and trade sites, fresh water and plentiful coastal food sources. We’re following in the footsteps of the Brinja-Yuin people as we walk the track section by section (it’s 13.5 kilometres one way), returning day after day to enter it at a different point, to cover new territory and to revisit a few favourites: trees, and a pathway or two.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014

Categories

  • "White beech"
  • Aboriginal history
  • Aboriginal site
  • animals
  • arboretum
  • archaeology
  • architecture
  • archives
  • art
  • Australian Ballet
  • babcia indulgence
  • banksias
  • bark
  • beach walk
  • beaches
  • bench series
  • Bingi Dreaming Track
  • birds
  • Black and white Sunday
  • boats
  • Bodalla
  • books
  • botanical art
  • botanical gardens
  • brief biographies
  • brief reviews
  • Brisbane
  • bush
  • bush walk
  • Cairns
  • camera skills
  • camping
  • Canberra
  • Carters Beach
  • challenges
  • challenges, art
  • cogitations
  • confession
  • Cooktown
  • country towns
  • Cowra
  • creating
  • creative friends
  • creatures
  • Daintree world heritage area
  • decisions
  • discovery of the week
  • Eurobodalla
  • Eurobodalla beaches
  • Eurobodalla bush
  • faction
  • family
  • farewell blogging
  • floods
  • flora
  • flowers
  • flying
  • food
  • found art
  • friends
  • gardens
  • geology
  • Germaine Greer
  • grandchildren
  • graveyards
  • guest post
  • haiga
  • haiku
  • Handkerchief Beach
  • Hervey Bay
  • history
  • hotchpotch
  • I wonder …
  • in memoriam
  • invitation
  • iPhoneography
  • iPhonephotos
  • iPhotography
  • It
  • Janek and Maja
  • Jemisons Headland
  • Jordan
  • journeys
  • K'gari, Fraser Island
  • Kianga Beach
  • Kuranda
  • lake walk
  • Lightroom
  • Liston
  • Melbourne
  • memoir
  • memories
  • miscellaneous
  • Moruya
  • Mossman
  • Mossman Gorge
  • movie
  • movies
  • museums
  • music
  • Narooma
  • National Gallery of Australia
  • national park
  • national parks
  • native orchids
  • Nelson, Victoria
  • new learning
  • Newcastle
  • Northern Queensland
  • only words
  • opera
  • orchids
  • passions series
  • performances
  • phoneography
  • photo
  • photos
  • photos by other people
  • photos by Rosemary Barnard
  • photos by TRT
  • plants
  • poetry
  • Port Douglas
  • portrait gallery
  • possum skin cloak
  • post-processing
  • Postcards from the past
  • Potato Point beach
  • Prue
  • public art
  • Queensland
  • rainforest
  • Reef Beach
  • reflection
  • relaxation
  • road trip
  • ruins
  • saltmarsh
  • series
  • someone else's photos
  • Stanthorpe
  • street art
  • Sydney
  • Syria
  • theme
  • things I didn't know
  • through the windscreen
  • Thursday's special
  • tranquility
  • travel theme
  • Uncategorized
  • video
  • Warsaw
  • waystations
  • Wellington
  • Western Victoria
  • what next?
  • women I admire
  • Wordless walk
  • wordless walks
  • words
  • words only
  • writing

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel