What a glorious, still, blue Winter ‘s day. A huge thank you to Jeremy Holland, our fearless leader of total 8 walkers for 14km: up and down the tightly knit hills and gullies, along roads, a part of the Goldfields Track, over rocks, around fallen logs, along mossy emerald waterlines (minor tributaries of Tarilta Creek), a bit of gorse, waterfalls x2, and then finally lots of zig-zagging across and upstream on Tarilta creek … yep – approximately 10+ crossings. All so varied in such a small geographic area. Some parts with green golf course like openings beside the trickling waters under stately, up to 40m tall candlebarks and stringybarks. (Not to mention the “glorious” golden gorse specimen shrubs as we rounded the snub of a ridge from shadow to sunshine later in the afternoon. And yes, some less “glorious” gorse in thickets further upstream along a section of the now steeply sided Tarilta Creek).
Photos: Ros Woodburn
The group chatter was varied (only a touch of politics) and usually gently humming as our group meandered (… stumbled???). Geology was always stirring bewilderment from the initially quite white sandy track to rocky lichen covered steep slopes to the vertical break in a watercourse allowing clear viewing of an anticlinal folding. There was a wide variety of wattle species, many of the birds mainly identified by their calls and such beautiful flashes of colour in the fungi – oh so magical in the gentle grey of the rich Box-Ironbark Forest.
By Ros Woodburn
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Click on image for info/order page
Click on image for info/order page
