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 up high enough to look across the swamp that lies between the dunes. Drifts of viridian sedges haze the swamp surface.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Then the track becomes an avenue of casuarina.
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.
So many different trees here. And this one...this one's a rainforest tree, lovely aromatic leaves.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
