David Hufton had invited me to join him on an outback road trip to Lake Mungo and some other national parks in South Western NSW and Western Victoria. His intention was to undertake a photographic trip, and this sounded good.
Murrumbidgee River
It turns out we had a great trip and were very fortunate with the weather and conditions we experienced. Continue reading
This was a quick trip down to Ferndale Park at Chatswood to see how the fund was going. In particular the green coloured “pink waxcaps” I had seen earlier in the week.
I was interested to see if they had changed to a pink colour during that period – they had not. Some perhaps had changed slightly. Continue reading
This was a very interesting walk. On many previous trips to the Asgard Plateau and on the cliffs on the north side of the Grose Valley I had plenty of chances to look at Burra Korain Head. I had never heard of bushwalkers climbing the head from the valley, but it looked possible. If so, it would be an interesting pass.
Recently, I had discussed this with Bob, and he thought he could recall an early solo trip up the Head, sometime back in the late 1970’s he thought. He had checked his maps and seen that he had indeed marked a dotted line going up onto the head from the Grose River. He could not remember any details of the pass up through the cliffs, but did remember that is was scrubby walking back along the ridge to Blackheath. So Bob and myself decided to have a go at getting up the Head. Rather than walk to Blackheath, we would only walk a short distance and then descend a pass back to near Victoria Falls. Continue reading
With the fungi season drawing to a close, this was probably my last walk for a while along the Two Valleys Track looking for and photographing the fungi. This time, I was joined by Digi Dave. This trip we walked from Bexley North Station to just past Turrella Reserve.
Cantharellus lilacinus
We had a good start to the trip, spotting a rather large Blue Tongue Lizard lazing in the sun. The lizard stayed long enough for us to get a few photos. Nice. Continue reading
I wanted to head back up to Ferndale Park to see how the mystery pink waxcaps were going. I think this is a species who’s fruiting body starts off green and as it ages it changes to orange and then pink.
At the park – I soon found a few of the waxcaps in their green form. There did not seem to be any out that were pink, although some were certainly changing from green. I spent a fair bit of time looking around at the locations where I had found the species on previous visits. Continue reading
This was a pleasant day out, accompanied by Digi Dave. We headed to the southern part of Royal National Park with our cameras.
Hygrocybe bolensis
Our intention was to photograph fungi at Bola and Palona Creeks, but on our way we stopped off at National Falls. There I photographed the upper falls. Continue reading
With the fungi season drawing to a close I wanted to visit Sassafras Gully at least one more time to see if any more waxcaps (members of the family Hygrophoraceae) were out. So far the season has been fairly poor for waxcaps at Sassafras Gully. Well! This trip was a big improvement. I found a lot of colourful waxcaps out – but I did have to search for them.
On this trip, I did my usual walk – in at Sassafras Gully Road – down Sassafras Gully to Glenbrook Creek, then out via Magdala Creek and fairly Dell. Mots of the good fungi was in Sassafras Gully close to the junction of the Wiggins Track or fairly high up in Magdala Creek. Continue reading
After seeing good fungi at Ferndale Park the day before, I thought it worth checking out Wolli Creek again. This time I started at Bexley North and walked down the Two Valleys Track to just below Turrella Reserve (and then back to Turrella Station). The recent rain had certainly improved things. Quite a bit was out – and a lot of it quite interesting fungi.
Humidicutis viridimagentea
The highlight was finding a species that I had been searching for. It is a rare species of waxcap, that had been found at Wolli Ck last year be a member of the Sydney Fungal Studies Group Inc. I think previously, it had only been found before in Western Australia. We think it is Humidicutis viridamagentea. Continue reading
It had been raining and I did not want to travel too far, so I headed back to Ferndale Creek at Chatswood to have another look at some of the mysterious pink waxcaps.
The evening before I had been looking at photos and seen that two photos I had taken about 5 days apart showed the same group of waxcaps. In the second photo all the fungi were pink. But in the earlier photo they were all green. So it looks like this is one fungi that changes colour as it ages. Some other waxcaps are well known for doing this, but none I know of change to pink. In their green form, the fungi looked a bit like what we think is Gliophorus psittacinus (Hygrocybe psittacina) that had been found recently, not too far away at Porters Creek near the Lane Cove River. But that species usually changes to orange as it ages. However, one online source, seemed to show a variant that changes to pink. So that could be what it is. Continue reading
The Asgard Plateau lies at the head of the Grose Valley, and can be accessed quite easily from the road to Victoria Falls Lookout. It is a beautiful and spectacular area and one that is generally quite easy for bushwalking.
Grose Valley from Thor Head
Bob and myself, set off down the closed off fire road that heads towards Asgard Swamp. A short distance before this turn off there is another that also heads off onto the Plateau. We used that the road for our return. Continue reading
