ANPS gets near its quarry

Actually it isn't ANPS's quarry, but a quarry along Cululla Rd near Tarago is a nice landmark for the Wednesday walkers.  And I say 'near' because we didn't jump the fence but stayed on the big bank on the far side of the road.

Before getting to the photos a comment on today's weather is appropriate.  Bloody windy is the phrase that springs to mind.  This is probably a good thing for your download limits as a number of my artistic  efforts came to look like a Monet painting seen through a steam bath and thus made it as far as the bit-bucket.  Here is what survived (so imagine what the rejects were like)!

I begin with an Acacia terminalis on the stony bank opposite the quarry.  For such a stony and exposed site there was an astonishing diversity of plants there, and quite a few were in flower.

 Acacia genistifolia.

 I gave up trying to get decent snap of the florets of A. terminalis in situ so seized a specimen (for scientific purposes of course - if the Japanese can justify whaling that way ....) and took a photo in my car!

 Hardenbergia violacea

 Coopernookia barbata is from the same family as Goodenia,  This relationship was hard to see in the tempest, but in a static image is quite a reasonable conclusion.

Philotheca salsolifolia: for a while this was going to be listed as "the plant of which no-one could remember the name"! It will now be remembered as "the plant of which no-one can spell the name"!  (Thanks for the correct name, Roger)

 Rhytidosporum procumbens

We then moved on a few kms to a patch of Crown Land above Oallen Ford on the Shoalhaven River.  This was well covered with vegetation but relatively little was in flower.  This Banksia paludosa had been in flower and I liked the look of the seed cases and remains of the cone.

When looked at more closely quite a few of the many bushes of B. paludosa had current seasons cones.

Luncheon was taken at the Shoalhaven River.  Members of the group devoted some energy to skipping stones into, and occasionally across, the water.  Had Barnes Wallis had the same success rate I suspect the Dam Busters would never have happened!

 This photo of a red Drosera sp (in vernacular, sundew) was taken at the earlier stop but is included for contrast with ...

 .. this one at our final stop on the Eastern side of the Shoalhaven.

 Hovea linearis (I think).

We did find a few traces of orchids here. Sorry about the use of 'sp' in what follows, but I have enough trouble identifying flowering orchids so leaves-alone are way too hard for me! I noticed the leaf of a Thelymitra sp (sun orchid).  As the leaf had a red base, in Carwoola I would log it as T. peniculata but that isn't listed for the sands of the Shoalhaven so ...?

Getting even less definite I found a bunch of these rosettes which I thought could well be Hymenochilus sp.

Nearby one (or indeed more) of the local intelligentsia had thoughtfully parked his wheels (or, more likely, someone else's wheels) in a dam.  2 Years ago when first seen the duco was still evident.  Either Nature is a good paint stripper or someone has torched it in the interim.  (We may have a project of following the decrepitation of this fine vehicle into its component molecules.)

 On the way home I noticed that the Lake George wind farm was saving Origin Energy a lotta carbon tax!  All turbines catching the breeze!

Particularly at the quarry I was reminded of a tale about Sir Thomas Playford the longest serving Premier of South Australia.  Apparently someone asked him what he was going to do about the invasive weed "South African Daisy". He said he was more concerned about the South Australian Daisy, found in profusion on all roadsides in his State.  Here is a shot of Bellis austrovulgaris - the common southern daisy!

From my observation the introduction of deposits on drink containers has greatly reduced the range of this pest in SA.  Perhaps Bazza will do the same in NSW, but I am not holding my breath!