Want to Come Walking?

Well… that winter padding is not going to fall off on its own. Time to get hiking again.
Joined Jeff on his hike around the Oldina area – not far from us.
Mostly it is unattractive logging areas, but has lots of great (if somewhat steep and wonky) tracks with a bit of natural bushland left.

I am suspecting this might be foxglove… If so, I am keen to get it for the garden!! Its classed as a weed although its so beautiful to see on the side of the road in bloom.
A lot of the logged areas are so unkempt when it comes to weeds and their management. And the whole area is a nightmare of rubbish that people come up and dump there.
Still… there is a lot of beauty there too.

I had the camera tucked away in my bag for the ugly areas and the tricky tracks. Some seem to be almost vertical!!

After a while we got to a blissfully easy road with gorgeous bushlands and the river.

There was some great fungi about too – I was regretting not having my macro lens!!

The occasional leaf
And one of my favourite things – scribbly bark on some fallen trees!
This is caused by the larvae of the scribbly gum moth. I love natural art!

There is not much artistic about the countless areas and articles of rubbish we came across.
This smashed glass however did offer me a little interest with the shapes and colours.

A large eucalyptus tree had fallen here… someone has been clearing up the wood. (free firewood?)
A man fern was also cut and left – we were considering seeing if we could find a way to get the car down to this point as the man fern will grow.

Speaking of man ferns (or tree ferns if you prefer)
Check out this insanely huge (and presumably old) beauty!

Towering above all the others – it really had a presence about it.
But not until I walked around and got to the bank I could see the actual scale of this fern

Would you like some scale??
Here is Jeff:

We’ve never seen one that big before.
And at a growth rate of about a centimetre per year, I’d calculate a good 400 years on this Earth.
The vine you can see growing up it is actually a blackberry – another weed. Next time we go we will take gloves and snippy things to remove it.
Oh – and here’s another Jeff photo – just for his folks!! (haha – Hi Judy)

After we said goodbye to the monster man fern, we went off the nice road to a more challenging road that went, ok… it didn’t go straight up, but it did feel like it a bit.

The recent rains make things muddy, sticky and slippery!!
And when you’ve just about got your breath back, you come out into a vastly different area again!!

All in all it was a really beautiful walk – I am sure it did me good!! (I sweated a lot and boy I can tell its been a while since my last hike!)
Hope you all had a lovely day too!
Cheers!