Happy Christmas Trees

Christmas was coming. So I popped young Ben in the car and we slipped around to Fairhill Native Plants to do some secret tree business.
Needless to say it didn't stay secret for long when we came home with three trees for Mum and Dad. Four year olds keep no secrets except their own.

So come Christmas Day, Nanny thought it would be a great idea to plant the trees, wouldn't take long, great little ceremony to mark Christmas 2013.
Ah but I forget…it's been a while since we put the last trees in…and it's quite a business.
So out we go into a very warm day after a great Christmas breakfast of croissants and pancakes etc….we're good at the food.

The creek bed is almost dry, just some very murky puddles here and there. It's dry season.

Resident Scrub Turkey is resting nonchalantly in his domain, with his enormous reproduction mound behind him. Fledgelings have long since braved the bush on their own.

Last season's plantings are coming along well. It's been a tough and very long dry season after five months of continuous rain. The firewheel tree, the brown pines, the Eumundi quandong, the crow's ash, the rare lily-pillies, the palms all getting their roots down deep for the long haul.

Alex has a great crop of young black bean trees from seeds gathered last summer. Black bean trees make a fabulous forest carpet with their bright orange and gold flowers.

I've chosen some very special trees…a Euodia for its beautiful bunches of pink flowers that burst from the branches, a Red Cedar for its rarity and great strength, and a Davidson's Plum for the fruit to bring the birds who also bring the seeds of other rainforest plants.

Alex is at work sieving clods of heavy soil, Kerri is hauling the hoses, I'm raking leaf litter piles along the path by the creek, and young Ben is hauling sand. He's a champion worker is young Ben. Chip off the old block.

The first hole is dug for the Euodia, nice sunny spot. Lots of kikuya grass here, needs grubbing out away from the hole. Who is that mad woman in her Christmas Day clothes swinging a mattock?

Kerri soaks the hole, Alex loads the sieved soil that's been mixed with sand and leaf litter, and the tree goes in. 

Ben brings his trolly load of leaf litter to mulch it all round. First tree done.

It's late morning by now and the day is very warm…we need sustenance. Time for a break. We can plant the other two tomorrow.

Nanny and Mummy conspire to convince the four year old that he needs a nap…Christmas Day has a long way to go yet.

And well, yes, the only one who goes to sleep is Nanny, who emerges much later to find that "the men" are out there, getting those trees in. Like I said, champion.

It's just a few acres, but planting some special trees that are native to the area creates a diverse local seed bank that enriches the surrounding forest and provides food for birds and creatures.

Not to mention the jam we'll make from the Davidson Plum to add to the Christmas table when years have gone by and this Christmas has become a happy memory.

Is This IT?

Finally! Finally the deluge has resolved to sunny skies and we can go out walking again. Summer with its rainy season has retired.
We're heading out to pick up a wallum walking track that we know, one with unfinished business.
A bit of a false start and raven berates our judgement with ark-ark and much frenzied tree hopping. The track is entirely underwater, and there's a wretched smell.
OK what next?
Rose thinks there's another entry point further up the coast so we drive on. Traffic is backing up behind us so Rose pulls over, and yes, there's the park gate right there where we've stopped. Funny thing that!

Last spring when we walked the wallum track that's now underwater, we knew that we would return to see what was calling from the high dunes to the north. So here we are, packs on our backs and feeling so good to be here.
It's early morning, around 7.30am and the light is glorious, a luminescence that gilds the banksias and purples the shade on the white sand track.



                                                     Image Ilyhana Kennedy

We have our little yarn with Country, give our greeting and flow into our gentle wander.
Squealing in typical raucous fashion, three black cockies do the flyover, close enough so we can see their eyes. Rose is quick, points the camera and grabs a shot as they head off towards the sea. We give them a good Aussie g'day.

Image Rosalie Hall

Five minutes later another black cocky does the same, running late, gotta catch up. They're a funny mob.
The sea wind here shapes and sculpts the banksias and casuarinas so that they grow westward into the flow.

                                                 Image Ilyhana Kennedy

Image Ilyhana Kennedy

Curly sedge and occasional woolsia spikes carrying pristine white petals edge the track that is now rising towards the higher dunes. Tiny gold yellow buds line the upthrust of stalks on a geebung bush. And now here, this little scrap of a plant looks like prickly Moses...tough as.



                                                    Image Ilyhana Kennedy

                                                      Image Ilyhana Kennedy

Image Ilyhana Kennedy

Fat and juicy, honey-filled banksia flowers are open for birdy brekky.



Image Rosalie Hall

We're not the only creatures to wend our way along this track. A myriad of footprints and trails leave stories in the sand. And oh, look, wallaby or maybe roo print right here.

                                                     Image Rosalie Hall

We're up high enough to look across the swamp that lies between the dunes. Drifts of viridian sedges haze the swamp surface.

                                                                     Image Rosalie Hall

Back come the three black cockies, squealing still, flying overhead once again, and off to the even higher dunes to the north-west. Goodness, will we walk that far?

                                                                    Image Rosalie Hall

The track lifts further and we climb till Mt Tinbeerwah shows its peak. A little higher and the lake spreads its Weyba waters shore to paperbarked shore.

                                                                Image Ilyhana Kennedy

We're at a junction. In the track to the left a bike lies abandoned corroding into junk. Just left there.

Rose is filming the gorgeous blues of the lake and mountains. I find a little purple patersonia bloom among the twigs.

                                                  Image Rosalie Hall

                                                   Image Ilyhana Kennedy

We take the track to the right heading north, north-west. We're on a ridge now, a trail rising gently now, welcome after the climb. Distant Mt Cooroy is caught with telescopic lens.

                                                       Image Rosalie Hall

Tiny white rice flowers peep out from under the thick wallum growth. Ants are invading a creature's home, a splendid orb of golden webbing suspended in sunlight.

                                                   Image Ilyhana Kennedy

                                              Image Rosalie Hall


Then the track becomes an avenue of casuarina.

                                                       Image Ilyhana Kennedy

The casuarina opens again to a glimpse of Mt Eerwah and Point Glorious. We seem to be walking parallel to the lake.

Image Ilyhana Kennedy

                                              
We think we've walked a long way. But we don't think we're there yet, wherever IT is that we feel called to visit. So we walk on.
Suddenly everything feels different. There are trees over our heads. Beautiful brush box with peeling caramel bark and smooth pink of exposed trunk. Trees lush with leaf after the long wet.

                                                     Image Ilyhana Kennedy

                                                         Image Ilyhana Kennedy

So many different trees here. And this one...this one's a rainforest tree, lovely aromatic leaves.

                                                    Image Ilyhana Kennedy

What a special little forest! We're enchanted. Maybe it's a rainforest remnant. And then we spy the orchid plant on the crumbling remains of a fallen trunk, trailing its strappy leaves and ripened seed pods across the leaf litter.

                                                      Image Rosalie Hall

                                                       Image Rosalie Hall

We wander through the forest pocket and out into the open dry heath of the wallum. Is that IT? Hmmm.... maybe....let's just sit here in the shade and see what happens, have a bite to eat ( Rose always has good ideas).
Nice to rest in the cool. Grapes, cheese biscuits, a sandwich, apples, a big drink. It's warm now.

                                                      Image Rosalie Hall

Out of seeming nowhere, a runner appears. He's almost going to jog right past but we can't have that so he's called to interrupt his rhythm and have a chat in his very nice French accent.
We ask him where we are. (We do have some idea, but it's nice to get the local info).He's obviously come from somewhere inhabited and we think we've been walking for miles. Truth be told we've been strolling taking piccies, as we do. 

He's an obviously fit man, not so young, runs this track a lot, not used to seeing other people on it. Tells us where the track goes, where he came from.
As he's talking I'm hearing a whistling kite calling k-k-k-kew, k-k-k-kew.

The man takes off again. And the kite is circling overhead. And look, there's another... and another. Three whistling kites circling together overhead. We watch them till they drift high into the haze of midmorning sky. How wonderful. This will do. This is IT. Forest and raptors.

We rest in preparation for our "long walk back". Spangled drongo flits glossy black in zig zag across the corridor. Butterflies sail down the corridor, velvet black with red and white spots, tiger blue, creamy yellow.

The runner returns, cheekily calls us slackos as we're still in repose. He stops to chat again, and again the whistling kite calls k-k-k-kew, k-k-k-kew. How very interesting.
Then off he jogs and up we get for the return.
Back through the magic forest with it's understorey of pink patterned leaves. Obviously this forest IS IT, so very beautiful.

                                                       Image Ilyhana Kennedy

Beyond the little forest, we find mistletoe in bloom.  A sweet little honeyeater full of the joy of life comes to feed from the flowers, too quick to catch on camera.

                                                  Image Rosalie Hall
It's late morning now. A cool sea breeze relieves the rising heat. It's all downhill now. We still catch a few pics as we go, some hibbertia flowers, casuarina cones scattering on the sand, an elegant banksia trunk that suggests nature's frame.

                                                    Image Rosalie Hall

                                                    Image Rosalie Hall

                                                     Image Rosalie Hall

We pick up pace and discover of course, that we haven't walked as far as we thought.
We turn and offer our thanks to Country, for its beauty, its welcome, and its endless surprises. Yep! That was IT!

Nurturing New Growth



New growth in the Firewheel Tree

 

It's been a dry dry spring since we planted our trees along the creek at Ninderry. Heavy mulching and bucketing water from the creek is seeing them through while they put down new roots to help them grab on when the flood rains come in a few months.

And wow, they're putting out new growth!

The brown pines have a whole new layer of soft lime green.

 

 

 

Brown Pines shooting forth.

 

 

It's incredibly rewarding to see trees respond to your efforts of dragging buckets of water from a creekbed. My little 3 year old grandson has been beside us all the way, lugging his bucket.

 

A rainforest baby.

 

Black Bean, Crows Ash, LillyPilly, Paperbarks, Eumundi Quandong and Palms are all doing well. We've not lost one.

Alex has worked like a Trojan and grubbed, pulled and chopped out the Camphor Laurel that was choking and poisoning the creek and the forest. Such a huge job. And now the light reaches the forest floor and the baby trees below the canopy. And they're loving it.

 

The creekbed at Ninderry...cleaned out.

 





 

So the creek is pretty low now and we're looking for early storms to replenish the remaining pools. Now that the Camphor Laurel is gone, we can see the baby native trees that have been struggling for some light. There are lots of little flame trees springing up, no doubt delivered thanks to Nature, from a neighbouring property.
Resident scrub turkey is just about swallowing one with enthusiastic nest building.

 



Baby Flame Tree





 

Scrub Turkey's footwork.

 

So far so good with our Tree Challenge efforts. It's a joy to watch them grow.