Mallacootie September 2014 (pt1)

So we set off after Frances' Latin U3A course and bowled down the Monaro Highway to Cooma through a few showers.

 When we left Canberra the temperature was 11oC.  We then moved on to the Snowy Mountains Highway and headed through Nimmitabel (1000m and 8oC).  As we approached the top of Brown Mountain (1100m) the temperature dropped to 6oC and there were patches of snow visible beside the roiad!

C'mon: this is 4 days into Spring.

No dramas.  Down the road to the Princes Highway and into the Eden Smokehouse for some of their excellent products.  On through  a few more, more serious, showers to Genoa.  Hmmm: a lot of water in the paddocks - was it a mistake leaving the wellies in Carwoola?

A pleasing sight was quite a lot of blossom (Epacris impressa and Acacia sp obvious from the car) as we get closer to 'coota.

There were several showers through the night: I don't think lawn mowing will happen on Friday.  Dawn sort of happened.
Despite the gloomy weather the day brightened up a lot when I spotted a Koala in one of the eucalypts on the next block.
It got even better when I realised there were two of them with the mum cuddling a joey.  I offer no apologies for putting in several images of them.





Rather than a run through the day's activities the rest of this post is a bit thematic. I got a couple of pix of birds.  A Welcome Swallow sat on the antenna dish ...
... while three White-headed Pigeons sat in the tree next to the Koalas
The beach was well endowed with surf ...
 .. and the breakwater seems to have been completed.
 It actually looks rather trivial.  The greater mess is going on at the top of the cliffs where a huge car park is being created. I presume some Councillor is going to try developing a 'Resort'in the area so will bring in lots of extra tourists (during the Summer school holidays at least).

Other tourists were not evident today so her smallness got to have time off the lead (as she can't escape from the beach too easily).
There were very few birds around: presumably the waders are still wending their way back from Siberia.

We started our flower checking with a walk to Genoa Rd where bank along the bit of Karbethong Rd is often good for orchids.  So it was this day with masses of Stegostyla clarkii.


The other orchids found today were in a paddock behind the Airport (which we visited looking -successfully - for Tawny Crowned Honeyeaters).  We have concluded these are Diuris pardina.

This one was making nice with a white mint-looking plant.

The rest of the images are a melange (a nicer term than mixed up mess) of floral images from our various expeditions through the day.

A mauve form of the mint-looking thing carpeted the paddock.
 An area under the power lines between the sea and the airport was not as floriferous as usual but did have a tea-tree (Melaleuca no, goose, it was of course Leptospermum sp.).
 A patch of Grevillea sp was beginning to flower.
I cannot resist photographing Correa reflexa.  The red form always comes out a more subdued colour than it seems in the bush.
The local species of Tetratheca sp (aka Black-eyed Susan - a vernacular name shared with many other species, in a range of genera) were unusually cooperative in giving up an image.
Two forms of Epacris impressa from the morning walk: note the embedded raindrops

 The only other 'heath we found.  Leucopogon sp.
This is a vine, which I suspect is the Wonga vine (Pandorea pandorana).
It is very attractive in close up.
 A Boronia sp.  This was surprising as some specimens we found were about 1.5m high.
 A blue flower: if anyone knows a better name, a comment would be appreciated.
 Glycine clandestina.
 A yellow member of the Fabaceae family.  I think the leaves are actually an invading Hardenbergia vine rather than the flowering plant.  WRONG:  Frances identified the plant as Mirbelia platyloboides which has leaves just like that (and then I remembered Hardenbergia is a bean also, so the leaves are common in the family).
 This a Dillwynnia, possibly D. sericea.
 Finally, a couple of Acacias.



Comments

Flabmeister said…
Thanks Jeni: it was even better being there!

Martin
9 September 2014 at 15:22:00 GMT+10
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