Don’t be confused by the dates - or lack of! I’ve been a bit slack but will try to lift my game here on in.
The trails around the Sale Common Nature conservation reserve are easy to walk and fairly well signed.
Tranquility
We saw flocks of birds further along this boardwalk nesting and resting in the rushes.
This is a fascinating place to visit with a variety of walks to choose from - through Red Gum bushland and other native trees, boardwalks and lake walks. We almost didn’t go because well we thought it would be boring ....... but in the end we made two visits as the trails cover ~15km - it was interesting to us!
The wetlands are a Ramsar site which means it is protected by international convention. (There are over 60 such sites in Australia with 12 in Victoria.)
The Common is 70% freshwater marsh - perfect for birds and loads of frogs etc. a good tucker place for lots of creatures including whistling kites and swamp harriers!
There are raptors and other hungry creatures in the reserve; little duck was lunch for someone. Such is the nature of life.
The land was set aside for the townspeople to agist their cattle and horses. But before then it had been a rich source of food and raw materials for the Gunaikurnai people of the region.
Glorious and those trees, magnificent! We were supposed to be on a track somewhere but Flooding Creek has lived up to its name.
On our second visit, we started at the southern end of the reserve at historic swing bridge built in the late 1800s over the Latrobe river to allow boats to and from the Port of Sale. Our intention was to walk along Flooding Creek but guess what? we made that visit after heavy rain so much of the area was flooded and that part of the track was simply under water. The flooding of course created a quite different vista and made large parts of this Common quite beautiful and still - but less accessible.
At the beginning of that second day we jumped puddles until we could go no further.
Well that was the end of that bit of trail - the other end of what we had intended walking. We managed a little way at each end - maybe half that loop. But there’s always another day!
I’ve been amazed at the number of huge trees growing out of swampy ground. I know I’ve got a lot to learn.
It’s an interesting place to visit but doesn’t leap out at you from the road, apart from the top lake (Guthridge) which is pretty nondescript and the track around it more of an exercise track than an interesting walk. You really have to simply dive in - to the whole reserve NOT the lake!
That visit ended with a walk around a wetland created more recently and planted around with lots of native and non-native plants. This red spider is some species of dwarf prostrate banksia. Intriguing.
I saw these on a sheoak and wondered if they were flowers or ......
.... they were spent flowers emerging as fruit. I have since learned that there are female and male Sheoak trees. The female trees produce the flowers and fruit pollinated by the male trees which bear no fruit but turn reddish with pollen in Spring.
Sheoaks is a member of the Casuarina genus, Casuarinaceae family which are native to Australia, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and Eastern Africa. The name Casuarina is derived from the Malay word for the cassowary bird, kasuari, because of the similarities between that bird's feathers and the plant's foliage.
A tranquil place to be - but for nature lovers lnot the boulevard or village stroller. We walked about 17 km over our two visits.
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