ANPS goes up the River (without a paddle)

Today we gathered at Casuarina Sands for a walk along the track upstream towards Kambah Pool.  As it was 13km one way we didn't intend to do the whole trek.  Perhaps it would have been easier to do it by canoe: looks nice and smooth at the Cotter Bridge.
 The water coming out of the Cotter River into the Murrumbidgee looks a little less smooth.
 About 1km upstream, and it definitely looks as though coming downstream would be better,  (I was anxiously looking around to make sure there were no banjo players at this point.)
 A little more turbulence in a context of Acacia rubida.
 The A. rubida ascended to the rocks behind us  ...
 ... and to the skies around us.
 The first plant to be covered in close-up is Bertya rosmarinifolia.  This shows sexual dimorphism (that phrase should boost my hit counts a bit) and we have ladies first.
 Here are the blokes.
 We then entered heath city.
Cryptandra propinqua!
 Cryptandra amara var longiflora
 Leucopogon attenuatus
 Nearly all the Correa plants had dried up ex-flowers.  Even though it isn't a great image I felt this C. reflexa deserved some publicity for maintaining colour and life.
There was much excitement about finding several specimens of Brachyscome willisii (known as the Royalla daisy).  This is rather rare so GPS readings were taken (on two receivers, and they gave the same answer - the most amazing event of the day).
 Clematis microphylla is also "boys and girls".  However I could only find boys!
 Rhodanthe anthemoides
 This bracket fungus, growing on a burnt out Casuarina made a pleasant shape.
 I tried hard toget a photo of a very lurid male Flame Robin but it was camera shy.  These Australian Wood Ducks also tried to escape but a 24X zoom defeated them!
 Frances found me a leaf beetle but by this time the wind has arisen and the jerking around of the leaf caused it to fall off the leaf before the shutter clicked.  A second specimen was more determined to stay in position.  You can see its feet clearly holding on!
 In the distance we could hear and see the work progressing on the new Cotter dam,  First one crane, with the dam wall just poking above the tree top.
 Then three cranes, looking rather like the Martians in War of the Worlds!

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