Mudgee - Ferntree Gully

Oyster Moon
Paul Foskett & Rhu Nash
Sun 3 Mar 2013 07:41

Position 32 35 20S  149 35 02E

 

Mudgee – another wine producing region.  Nice town with really wide streets.  Do you know why many roads in Australian towns are so wide?  So the bullock trains could turn around – courtesy of Paul.  At last out of the rain. 

 

Ferntree Gully –

 

 

short walk but a real scramble down a very narrow gorge and steep climb out again.  This is at the bottom, you can see where the water has carved out the sandstone rock.

 

 

This is a wonga wonga vine (Pandorea pandorana), you can see how it really coils around itself.

 

 

The rasp fern (Doodia aspera), you can see how it got its name from this photograph.

 

 

Paul beside one of the tallest trees in the gorge, the mountain grey gum (Eucalyptus cypellocarpa).

 

 

 

At the bottom of the gorge is rain forest, here’s Paul doing a little dance on a boardwalk into the rainforest.  Just after this we came across some lyre birds.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get a good shot of them.

 

 

Footpath out of the gorge.

 

 

 

View from the Ted Daniels lookout, looking back down into the gorge.

 

 

Rhu at the Norm King Lookout

 

 

Paul on the footpath.  At the top of the gorge where it’s really dry is sclerophyll  forest.  Lots of tall bushes in this region, some with spikes.  If you looked either side of the path, really difficult to see more than a couple of metres.  The bushes all have very thin thick waxy leaves.  Good for the heat in the summer and cold in the winter.

 

 

Paul taking a rest.

 

 

After this walk Paul decided to do a bit of off roading.  We slithered 26km to a lake and then slithered back again.  Luckily the car was obviously designed to disguise the mud.  We have noticed that you don’t often see dirty cars in Australia.  After visiting car was now understand why, this mud is really clay and when it dries is so hard that it is difficult to shift.  The car ..

 

 

And the lake…