User advisory: this post is pretty long with a fair few images!
While at Orbost recently we picked up a leaflet about walks in the SE coastal area. One of these was to Maxwell's Rainforest walk which sounded interesting and appeared to be just North of Genoa. A birding friend knew the spot and gave me a link to the eBird hotspot.
It turns out that "just North of Genoa " was a bit of a simplification as it is about 25 km up the Princes Highway and then 13km along a forest road. However, no biggie. My friend also knew of another spot nearby giving views of rainforest off Royds Creek Rd. Here they are on a small scale map.
Note that the diagonal white line is the NSW/VIC border so we were in Canada (if folk in Sydney call Victoria "Mexico" ....). The red lines mark the boundaries of my Mallacoota region
A larger scale view shows the eucalypt forest (dark green) with the rainforest in light green along the drainage lines.
The Forests Corporation have done a very efficient distance measuring approach. Who needs fancy markers when you can just paint a number on a tree? Presumably this is helpful for their management and fire fighting applications.
The start of the walk was a very nice area with dunnies, a picnic table and an informative notice board.
The notice board said information was available from the Eden Office of Forests, but that is no longer open to the public (as the Corporationn has withdrawn funds for the public contact person) so I'll have to get a copy of the map from somewhere else. I have come across
this website which looks interesting, if only I had a GIS system!
But wait: there's more! The boundaries of the Flora Reserves can be downloaded as a KML file and are thus viewable through Google Earth! Here is the full extent of Maxwells Flora Reserve.
Getting on to the nature side of things what follows is organised more or less thematically in the order fungi, forest, and ferns.
Almost before we got to the start of the walk we found this very large fungus. Fungimap advise
Gymnopilus junonius.
This image includes the gills.
Some unknowns- suggestions of, and opinions on, ID welcome!
I really can't imagine what an
Amanita muscaria is doing in a eucalypt forest a long way from any introduced trees. Fungimap advise
Russula sp.
This next, large, example was in the rainforest growing on a fallen log Fungimap advise
Cymatoderma elegans.
Two more unknowns.
This is the broad environment at the start of the walk.
There were a few of these signs around, for which the Forests Corp deserves praise.
Obviously they haven't inspected the track recently. But again no biggie: if you can't handle this there are several other attributes of the track which will cause you more problems!
Thanks to Janine from
Echidna Walkabout Tours this is a Rough-fruit Pittosporum (
P. revolutum).
This one has fully opened and may be attractive to fruit eating birds such as pigeons.
Next is a Bolwara (
Eupomatia laurina). Also thanks to Janine! Bolwarra has an edible fruit which apparently tastes like a guava. Ripens in winter, you can tell because the fruit feels soft (it is green when ripe). Loved by wildlife.
Once down in the depths of the forest there were some nice buttressing on the banks of a stream, suggesting the water flow might be a bit vigorous at times.
This is the view on to the forest at Royd's Creek Rd, which I didn't penetrate (there is a track - Royd's Picnic Track, dead end for cars - going from Royd's Creek Rd to near the Maxwells walk which may have some interest for a future visit.)
There were few flowers around. This Goodenia sp ...
... and a few
Xerochrysum brackteatum were about the extent of it.
Getting back into the rainforest the outstanding plants were the tree ferns. It was already apparent that we had seen both
Dicksonia antarctica and
Cyathea australis. However this sign brought a third species into play.
Some of the
Cyathea australis were very tall!
The dog was being carried as she had been finding the leaf litter and fallen material in the eucalypt forest difficult going (and was still getting over a wasp sting). She had no problemos withe fern forest floor or the steps going back up.
I liked the pattern of these fronds against the sky.
This is a stem of
Cyathea leichhardtiana - the Prickly Tree fern. The stem remains are much less densely packed.
No trolls were seen during this walk.
Many of the ferns had interesting epiphytes on them.
Moss being moss on a fallen log.
I think this is a club moss (
Lycopodium sp.)
An astute reader will have noticed that there has been no mention of birds. That is because:
- there were none actually seen; and
- at Maxwells in many cases those heard were probematical in working out if they were actual species calls or mimicry by the Lyrebirds which were very evident in the area; while
- at Royd's Creek Rd the Bell Miners seem to have driven most other birds away.
Comments