Wildflower Wandering at Mt Emu

Day has broken clear and blue, a little chill on the sea breeze but great for walking. With the unseasonal deluge of late August we missed the wildflowers at the Marcus track in Noosa National Park. But maybe it's not too late for the Mt Emu track. Let's go see.

We take the entrance to the lower track and greet our beautiful country. It's a gorgeous morning, the light is gentle. We're going to head round the back of the mountain…well it's not really a mountain, more like a low rocky hill, and it's traditionally known as women's country.

Oh look here! In full bloom! I have no idea what it is but it's so pretty, a flush of tiny white blooms. And look there's a little dog rose! (Haaaa…big sigh, we're immersed already ).

The wallum wildflowers can be like little jewels in the chaotic mass of enmeshed growth. The hunt is on! 
This is wet land, water seeping from the hill above. We're walking around the base of the northern and western sides of the hill. It's hakea country, their fire blackened bare arms casting a sculptural backdrop to the tender and slender new spikes of grass trees. And everywhere the  new growth of the wallum glows in the morning light, shot through with small explosions of brilliant red bottlebrush.

Honeyeaters flit and warble. We hear a rainbow bee-eater trilling on the wing. Sprinkled through the grassy mesh the purple triangles of patersonia look like royalty. And see here…three pretty milkmaids all in a row.

A woody hakea pod opens its ochre heart to the warm morning sun. Across the track, the very photogenic banksia flower, singing with symmetry. We're in nature's garden.

It's always a pleasure to find the sweet pink four petals of boronia and there's quite a lot of it here.

It's fun to be able to name the flowers, though many are a mystery. There's a clump of philotheca, and tea tree, but then what are these others? There'll be a hunt through Stephanie Haslam's lovely reference book tonight (Noosa's Native Plants).

The track winds down to a rocky place where the small eucalypts grow. Their flowering time comes much later in the year. Water emerges from a slope of rock and seeps across the road. 

This spot always feels more intense. Above us, at the top of the hill, a rocky outcrop reaches into the blue.

Velvet green mosses take advantage of the seeping moisture on the rock face. Someone has left their mark on the rock as well. Maybe they know it's the age old symbol for Earth and all things in balance…or maybe it's a just a marker for bike riders.

We wander on. Out to our right the mass of vegetation has a soft gold tufted surface, and curling ferns in shady spots. I find a bloom of club rush right by the track.

We've come to a fork in the track. The swamp water drains out here. There's a track leading up to the top of the hill…looks wet and a bit of a climb. We're not into climbing are we? Nah. Maybe we turn around here. Oh, but what's this tiny little pink pea flower?  

The sun is well up now, and a cuppa sounds like a good idea. Back along the track we go. And just as we find our way to the end, there's a flash of yellow in the tree close by…the brilliant wing of the new holland honeyeater. Gorgeous!

To take this walk, go to the Noosa National Park entrance on Havana Rd East at Coolum High School (UBD Map 39 G2). There are two entrances…take the second. Follow the track to the right rather than going up the hill. 

Storywalking is Going LIVE

The Storywalking Blog has had such great feedback, you've loved the blog so much that I decided to get organised and set up a series of LIVE walks in our beautiful wallum heath and woodland here on the Sunshine Coast.

We'll get grounded, leave the busyness behind us for a couple of hours.

We'll switch on our senses, we'll hear, we'll see, we'll feel the beauty of Nature with a deep immersion.

Why Storywalking? Because every place has a story, every place feels different, has it's own sense of spirit of place.

The first LIVE Storywalk will happen on Sunday August 17th. We'll go wildflower wandering in the wallum heathland. Spring will be just around the corner and the land will be responding to the warmth of the sun.

It's about twenty years now that I've been leading sensory Dreaming walks and I can't tell you how wonderful it is to see people toss off their woes, step into the freedom of just being... of being fully present to the beauty of Nature. Like a long cool drink when you're really thirsty. Haaaah!

The walks will happen every fortnight or so. We'll wander in the wildflowers, and in the garden of the high dunes, along the shoreline of Yaroomba, and around Mt Emu and Mt Coolum…no climbing, no exertion, we're there to just wander and love it.

Love to have you join us, and yes the online Stoywalking Blog will continue.

Story and pics by Ilyhana Kate Kennedy

Storywalking is an Earthsoulscience Co-operative Ltd event. ESS Co-op is a not-for-profit group established for education and research in environmental, social and spiritual sustainability. If you'd like more info about Storywalking, you'll find us on www.earthsoulscience.com  or www.facebook.com/EarthsoulscienceCoOp 

High Dunes in High Summer

It's Saturday. Cyclone Dylan has been ravaging the tropical Coast to the north and by Friday evening had advanced as far south as Bundaberg. I get up at 6am to check the weather radar. There'll be no welcome rain for us. The cyclone is stationary and fizzling out. Ah well, at least we can go walking.
By 8.30am I'm up at Park Edge Rd meeting my walking companions. We're going across the high dunes down to Alexandria Bay and up onto the headland. First time for my friends.

It's heavily overcast and windy.We step from the street of houses straight into wallum woodland and trade greetings with the forest. It's so quiet in here, just one lone butcher bird come to welcome us and he's not up for a song in this weather.
I've never seen the forest so dry that the leaves are hanging, so thirsty. A stand of hardy blechnum ferns claims the track edge but there's little else in the forest under-storey but leaf litter.

Trees take on grotesque shapes. A big mama curls her arms every which way. 

We chat to an older Sunshine Coaster who gives my friends the heads up for walking barefoot.

The track softens into velvet white sand and climbs into "the garden", the glorious wallum heath of the high dunes. Banksia leaves have turned a rich gold with the dry season and the larger trees are sporting banksia men aplenty…the peculiar hairy and "wild man" seed cones.

My friends are in bliss mode with the beauty of the wallum heath. We share an enraptured little chat with a couple of young backpacking men from Germany with beautiful English. Nature lovers at 19. Yay!

How many of us can speak beautiful accent free German, I wonder?

There's something different in flower at every season and I'm delighted to see the little eucalypts that grow here in full flower with creamy honey-filled bunches bursting from their branches.

The sky and wind are still sombre enough to quiet the birds and it's a little strange to walk the wallum without their familiar orchestra.

It's a place of magic for the artist's eye and our cameras are busy capturing texture, colour and form. An explosion of slender green lines shoots forth from the snakeskin patterned trunk of a grass tree.

The sculptured lines and creamy lime greens of banksia bloom draw attention across the top of the low growth towards the taller forest edge. Streaks of thick whites paint the lavender grey trunks of a gum. Green and gold whorls of banksia and grass trees swirl through the lower storey.

This glorious garden of Nature atop the high dunes opens to the skies and views of the ocean. In the driest season, Nature displays her extraordinary resilience by throwing out plump stalks of velvety russet new leaves on a young banksia. 

The cloud cover is gradually opening to patches of blue and sunshine as we leave the "garden" and make the descent once again through woodland. I'm surprised to see the tall casuarinas so sparse in leaf. So very dry. Grass trees have some age here. 

I find another plant in flower that I've not seen before. Tiny green flowers on a waist high spindly bush. I take a shot and hope my reference books or a blog reader can ID.

The swamp is as lush with ferns as ever. A climbing maidenhair fern scrambles across a tangle of grasses and ferns. Soft papery trunks lift into the sunlight. Under the boardwalk, the trickling tea-coloured waters hold the world reflected.

The track climbs through woodland again and now the ocean's roar and pandanus by the track signal that we have arrived at Alex Bay. I catch a few images of goatsfoot in flower on the shore dunes.

The surf is heaving, a huge emerald green foaming thrash of an ocean. The windy weather has discouraged the humans who usually populate this beach, so we walk the beach with just a few. 

We climb up to the headland and wander through the sighing casuarinas and soft grass carpet, one of my all-time favourite places. It's summer so no golden paper daisies, but here and there amongst the ochre rocks, the little blue jewels of evolvulus. 

We take a little space to just sit and be.

Ah but time pushes on and meetings await. Time to return. Sigh.

So we wend our way back along the beach and through the many tracks that are marked with the number 5 arrow, finding a different return route. 

And here's another unknown plant in flower and fruit. It's a scrambling vine with milky white sap and a very colourful fruit (do not eat!), small creamy white flowers off the main vine. A very vigorous plant, spreading everywhere. Another one to ID.

The heat of the day is a little taxing now as we return, but the birds are singing with the sunshine. We give our thanks to the forest, and each other, and emerge to go our different ways.

This walk is around 5.5ks return (Noosa National Park, Sunshine Coast Qld, Australia). 

It's a beautiful place to commune with Nature but important to take responsible care of personal safety re swimming and dangerous surf, waves washing onto rock ledges, and safety around high cliffs. Further information is available from Noosa National Parks website.

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.