After a much better night's sleep, coffee was made and drunk, and breakfast was munched. The tent was then taken down and the car packed ready for departure. Somehow all this took much more time than in the past: I think having the camper made us soft!
Before leaving we did a traditional walk round Lake King. It appeared that the dog-assailing Lapwings have moved more or less permanently down to the edge of the Lake, where three chicks were zipping around ...
... with their parents bombing all canines that came too close. We proceeded on, noting this sculpture beside the walking track.
A nearby sign named it as "Still Waters" by John Salafia. It also mentioned Sculpture Trial 2015: we were unsure whether this was actually a test piece (ie a trial) or if there was a typo for "Trail". Whatever, it is quite interesting.
Shortly after we met a local walking his Jack Russell, and Tammy trotted up to say hello. Suddenly the opening exchanges of WW3 were apparent. The miscreants were separated with the local lifting his dog up in its harness on the end of the lead, saying "I'm not sure who started that but think it might have been mine." I suspect he was correct, but Tammy was certainly up for whatever was on offer!
After a discussion about breeds of pooch we passed on, taking a snap of this Acacia which was very common in the area.
We completed our circuit of the Lake noting a few species of bird of which the most interesting was a Masked Woodswallow. The dryness of the inland is certainly shifting the Woodswallows out to the East.
We filled up with diesel at the Metro station in the main street of Rutherglen (as usual cheaper than elsewhere in the area) and headed out to the Hume Highway and back into NSW. A rumble up the highway to Tarcutta and into Mates Gully Road to check TSR followed.
There was quite a bit of bird song evident but most of the action was in the treetops and it was hard to actually see the performers.
This wasn't made easier by the density of the foliage!
Another shrub - possibly a different species of
Eucalyptus had its blossom at a more photographically convenient height.
There were a few flowering beans and I'm not going closer than family
Fabaceae. with this area being right out of the zone where I once used to know something about the plants.
I am pretty certain this blue jobbie is
Stypandra glauca.
We did end up with some interesting birds with Brown Treecreeper being Bird of the Day. Other potentially useful birds had been Fuscous and Yellow-tufted Honeyeaters. I was interested in the density of Sacred Kingfishers: at least 3 pairs seemed to be setting up territories on a walk of no more 1.5km in one direction.
Back at the road I glanced down and saw our first orchids:
Petalochilus fuscatus.
It was interesting how variably they were coloured from the pale pink to this much darker specimen. However all their stalks were thin so I couldn't claim the following as
P. carneus. (Of course unlike some taxonomists I don't have a DNA sequencer (nor a billiard cue) in my pocket so can't be certain.)
After a fruitless - or more importantly pie-less - pause in Tarcutta we rumble onwards. Frances took this image of one of the few canola fields we saw. I am not certain if we were a little too early (or a little too far South) but in other Spring meandering the whole countryside has seemed bright yellow whereas this year green - or early brown was the go.
It was good to see the Committee had gathered on the Creek to welcome us home.
I have commented a couple of times in this series of posts about where the climb from the Murray-Darling Flood Plain to the Monaro Tablelands begins. With a little help from Google Earth I have constructed this chart.
While there is a gradual climb from Hay to Wagga (and there are a few hills on the road between Wagga and Gundagai, where the road builders decide to go over something rather than follow the Murrumbidgee), the real climb begins at Gundagai.
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