Friday’s Footprints – Picnic in the Rain and Fantastic Fungi

A day out was needed, so we packed a picnic and headed out past Waratah to the site of an old mining town/area. The weather was a bit dubious, but we figured we were waterproof enough and I think the bush looks prettier in the wet.

Once off the main road you come to this encouraging sign –

So onward!!

The road in is overgrown, a bit rough in places but very pretty. The drive over the creek is a little steep but not much of a challenge

The flats along the side of the creek are littered with the remains of the mining era – from what I can find out was in its heyday, from around 1877 to 1940 where they mainly mined silver, zinc & lead.

You can still find interesting rocks –

Boots, bottles and broken glass are everywhere

Beautiful river driftwood was everywhere and I spent the first hour plotting how to convince Jeff that we needed to take a lot of it back with us to give it a good home.

Eventually I got distracted by mushrooms –

It was a scramble up the hill to reach the small walking tracks that are lined with ferns and trees dressed in fluffy lichen

It was dark, green and a little spooky

But beautiful

Everything was covered in a carpet of green

I kept finding abandoned boots & shoes!

There were so many different types of mosses, lichen and fungi

I have never actually studied fungi so I can’t tell you the names of all these beauties! Maybe it could be a winter sideline for me to get a book and do a bit of reading!

Eventually we realised it was after 2pm and the weird noises we were hearing was grumbling stomachs!

We ate in the back of the car under the boot hood as the rain started to get more than misty

We drove down the muddy track further, where a lot of town remnants could be seen

 

The creek running alongside the track was pretty

We went back up into the Myrtle forest to hunt out a few more fungi. I kept face-planting spider webs so I don’t know how many of these I brought home –

I could have stayed for a lot longer but I was starting to get a bit precious & whingey about my camera getting soggy (Plus we wanted to get up the hill before it got too mucky and slippery)

Everything smells so fresh and looks so good in the rain!

This is very much off the beaten track of tourism, so is a great experience to just go and fossick around. Its peaceful, quiet and beautiful.

I’ll leave you with my favourite fungi – which I learned is an introduced species! But beautiful nonetheless!

Cheers

PS It’s 1am, its 15 degrees Celsius (59F) and it’s POURING with rain!! 🙂