Chunderpooch visits Majors Creek

As Denis Wilson and Alan Stephenson intended to visit the cemeteries of Major's Creek and Captain's Flat in a search for Prasophyllum orchids, Frances and I decided to join them.  As well as the pleasure of their company and the chance of spotting some interesting plants it would

• take us to a 'town' we had never been to, thus advancing our 'every town' project;
• explore a road I'd never been along; and
• give the small dog a drive.

The roads were fine but Wallace's Gap Rd turned out to be a bit twisty for the small dog's alimentary system and a deconTammienation pause was necessary just after the gap.  This had the benefit of me first hearing, and then seeing, some Glossy Black-Cockatoos feeding on Allocasuarina trees beside the road.

This shows the red tail panels but otherwise reflects the crummy light due to cloud and drizzle.

By the time we got to the Cemetery

the drizzle had got into the spirit of things and could be described as wind-driven rain.  Not good.  However we met up with Denis and Alan and got stuck in to looking for orchids.  No Prasophyllums were found but a nice collection of Alan's second target species Diuris punctata

were discovered, growing more widely in the cemetery than on his previous visit.  This probably reflects the way the grass had not been scalped: well done cemetery managers!

Several Thelymitra buds or capsules were found but they seemed unwilling to flower at about 12 degrees in a gale and rain.  I don't blame them.  Microtis parviflora did a bit better

while a few Diuris sulphurea were found, but not photographed, among the bordering trees.

Frances was interested in this unusual design of cast iron

around a rather old grave.

We assume that Agnes was William Nairn's daughter (or else the residents of Major's Creek had advanced views about marriage for the 19th Century - although it was, an still is, a gold mining area).

Another interesting gravestone had this marker:

Frances recognised the name (most of the other sites that linked to "Altenburg" were genealogical in nature (and thus either trying to extort money or so detailed as to be useless) as being that of a respected gallery in the main street of Braidwood.  One of the sites - quite authoritative - put up by Google indicated the Gallery was now closed and another had a rather outdated "For sale' listing.  The rest still seemed to treat it as a going concern which is a bit oif a worry.

Being a town there were Major's Creek War Memorials to be checked out.  Most of those listed on the Register were inside St Stephens Church

but this was beside the street.

We passed by some very pleasant looking Callistemon bushes ....

... partook of lunch at the Recreation Reserve (which dates from 1893), and headed off through the rain to The Flat Cemetery.  While drier than Majors Creek, in terms of orchids this was even less productive than our previous visit with one pathetic D. sulphurea being the only flower spotted.   A quiet end to an overall interesting (as always with Denis and Alan around) outing.