October 20 Cicada violets and mozzies!

We’ve been driving through thick curtains of forest trees for weeks - wonderful! Oreo weeks or so ago we ventured onto the Murrungowar Forest Drive which meanders along the Murrungowar Road and other tracks including along the wheel-tracks of the very tongue-in-cheek Four Lane Hwy. Over creeks, through dry eucalypt and banksia forests and warm temperate rainforests, we zigzagged through some of far east  Gippsland’s mighty forests. The Drive is extremely well signed and is not long, less than 40km but we took nearly all day. Well of course we did! There’s so much to see, photograph and learn including the realisation that we ‘City folk’ don’t know squat about our forests.  It was an enlightening day.  

The trail first passed through an old growth Banksia woodland of mainly Saw Banksia. This woodland is quarantined against disturbance as a Special Protection Zone of 2500 acres.  

Trigger plant - most we’ve seen have had pink flowers 

Here we found a white trigger plant. Look closely and you see the little trigger. 



Pink match heads

Milkmaids 







We made very frequent stops to creep about looking at wild flowers many of which we couldn’t identify but enjoyed all the while serenaded by the incessant whirring, clicking hum of cicadas and whining of mozzies. 

We drove through forests of native mostly endemic trees utilising a number of different systems. Among them the ‘seed tree’ system which leaves large mature trees standing at harvest time to provide seeds for regeneration. 

We also passed Silviculture systems which include over 100 research sites incorporated into many forest stands. That system which was established over 30 years ago, has been monitoring the long term environmental and economic effects of a range of different harvesting and regeneration treatments in native forests. And before you go off the deep end about forests, yes there is still a humongous and growing demand for wood products for multiple purposes so growing and harvesting trees is a necessary corollary to our escalating consumer lifestyle. Since then I’ve tried to find out more about our forests (see below if you’re interested).

As well as river corridors of lush growth, a network of linear reserves 200m wide exist along streams to help maintain populations of species sensitive to timber harvesting and wildfire. We saw Water Dragons up to 1m long - weird. 

Cabbage Tree creek. The path to the waterfall was closed - fire damage evidently. 

Tristanopsis laurina - Water Gum or Kanooka.  A relic from the past that we have found scattered among granite boulders along streams and near waterways. Fossils have been found in the La Trobe valley dating back 27 million years. Indications are that this plant flourished in the subtropical rainforests which once dominated tomato of the State. It is now confined to watercourses and pockets of rainforest where it is moist and protected from fire. 

Water humidity and you guessed it - mozzies. 

We always go out equipped - coverall clothes, insect repellent and nets we even have nets that we made to hang over the front doors of the car. We made them for the outback to keep out the flies but here they work a treat to keep out the mozzies when we’re parked with doors/windows open. I also now pack is Tick Off on the car in case we pick up any hitch-hikers - again (one took a liking to me last year in this general area - nasty  little thing left me with a red swelling for a long time)

This is Four Lane Highway - someone has a quirky sense of humour! This ‘Highway’ took us to Falls Creek falls, a delightful cool and lush gully with loads to look at along the track to the falls (you have to walk in).

This is a memorial plaque to a young environmental forester who was a passionate supporter of the Silviculture experiments.

Falls creek tumbles over massive granite boulders. Quite delightful albeit hard to actually get close to. 

Lindsay is contemplating doing a bit of rock-hopping. I strongly discouraged him!

Tiger orchid growing by the track 

It’s quite tall. 

The meringue puff ball fungi was puffing out its spores at the merest breeze - or someone’s finger poke! 

Thus delightful confection grabbed my eye as I wandered passed. I walk with  eyes down mostly so as not to miss anything - except what’s above me hmmm.

Sticky everlasting daisies formed a guard of honour along the roadside. 

The daisy plants were almost as tall as Lindsay. 

The Brodribb river - not a lot of leeway for high water. 

We saw a large water dragon scuttling along that shore. He ducked into the trees out of sight before we could get cameras out. 

We took an alternative track back to the Highway and home and that took us across the Brodribb River which had seen recent floods. 

The reality of a consumer society and the fate of forests. So our forests.....
Not surprisingly forests occupy around 17% of our continent 98% of which are native forests and are mostly endemic which is important for the health of our fauna and flora which suffer from wholesale clearing to make way for housing and to grow produce ..... and that’s another story). The remaining 2% of forests are commercial, half of which are soft woods (Pinus radiata) the other half eucalypts. Given Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world I was surprised to learn that Australia has about 3% of the world's forest area, and globally is the country with the 7th largest forest area.

https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/forestsaustralia/australias-forests