Tag: Leeawuleena

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Byron 2015 Mar

Mt Byron Mar 2015 
The reason I climb mountains is because I love being up high (I also love climbing trees); I adore the physical act of climbing, and my soul delights in being with nature and gazing at sublime infinitude.

I am also, however, a task-oriented person, who likes to achieve the goal for the day. After two failed attempts at the summit of Byron in as many tries on club walks, it was time to be my own boss. I wanted success this time. I’d look up how many points I got some time or other. The summit was my goal.

First official day of autumn. Frost says “Good”.
The trip to the ferry “threatened” to be the highlight of the day. Sunrise was magnificent as I drove up the Poatina Rd to the central highland; on top, autumn announced its arrival with glorious patches of sparkling frost. Lake St Clair (Leeawuleena – magnificent name) was shrouded in mist. It was going to be a gorgeous day. A temporary dampener, however, was put on matters when Steve, the cheery, affable ferry driver, informed me that he was finishing up at the end of the week. I wonder if his employers understand what an amazing asset they’re losing. Steve’s friendly and knowledgeable trips have come to be a grand entree to every expedition in the area, aiding in the excitement of each venture.
You don’t replace someone like that easily: a new ferry driver, sure, but an asset like Steve … ever?

Leeawuleena (Lake St Clair).
I love the forest lining Leeawuleena – always so rich, lush and vivid in its greenness. Happily I strode out, staring intermittently up at my mountain, and at all the old friends that surrounded my journey. Unfortunately the atmospheric mist had already evaporated. It took 17 mins to the turn off; and 59 more up to the top of the Byron gap, where the real work would begin. This is the third time I have walked this “track”, yet I managed to dream my way off it twice on this trip. Fortunately, the first time was right near the start, so I turned on my gps tracker in case I should need it on the way back down. The black dashed line for track on the map bore no resemblance whatsoever to the track I was marking. I was glad that I wasn’t trying to navigate myself to the line on the map for safety.

Paths like this require constant attention to stay on them.
After the gap, I had to make my own way to the top. There was talk of a cairned route if you happened upon it. I didn’t, so nosed my way to my left through pretty thick scrub and along a rather precipitous cliff-ledge until I came to a promising looking gully leading upwards. Happily, my map indicated that this could be followed to the final summit mound (which would hopefully not be fortified by more unmapped cliffs. One never knows on maps that don’t back up photogrammetry with cartography). The map certainly didn’t tell me that the rocks comprising this backdoor entrance were wash-machine size, with some heaving needed sometimes to get to the next layer. I began to worry about the return journey and the still existing possibility of getting trapped with no retreat reasonable. I hankered after a nice easy cairned route. I sensed the effects of adrenalin.

Byron’s pandani forests are a delight
The mound ahead looked as if it could contain the summit, but I didn’t dare invest too much hope in this. Too often such mounds lead to a view of the next, higher one. This one, however, offered my approaching form a sighting of three little rocks perched atop one another. I had made it.

Looking at Manfred, Horizontal Hill, Guardians, Gould, Geryon et al
I actually felt nauseous with anxiety, as the descent still lay before me. I didn’t linger on top like I normally do, just in case I needed lots of time to find a way down. Besides, lunchtime hadn’t quite arrived yet. I took photos and then set out to try my luck on the return journey. This time was different. I happened on a cairn on my chosen early section, and one cairn led to another. Eureka. This route was SO easy. It was 30 mins faster than my way up – most unusual for me. I usually ascend faster than I drop, due to my eagerness to see the top and my hatred of stopping before I’m there. I am not normally happy to leave, so dawdle a bit.

View to Horizontal Hill, Guardians, Gould, Geryon and more
In the safety of the saddle, all work behind me, I enjoyed my lunch, looking out at Frenchmans Cap.  I was easily in time for the afternoon ferry, except that it had been cancelled. I was the only customer. Now began the long walk home. No matter. The forest is wonderful. I slotted into my rhythm, walking and singing my way through fairyland back to the visitor centre, where I enjoyed a delicious veggie curry before embarking on the drive home in the fading light, shooing countless conferences of wallabies, all sitting erect in the middle of the road chatting, unwilling to have their colloquies interrupted by a mere vehicle. I stopped to let each group finish its important discussion. My speed ranged from 0 to 50 km.p.h in deference to their need to converse on dirt road.

An unusual perspective on Olympus, with Leeawuleena and Lale Petrarch balanced on its outstretched arms.
The challenges of the day, apart from driving, climbing, and avoiding garrulous marsupials, involved walking 36.5 “kilometre equivalents” (where 100 ms climbed = 1 km equiv). Quite an active day.

The more southerly route is me fumbling my way to the top, edging around cliffs. The northern one is the cairned route. which I happened upon up the top.

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Fungi fest Lake St Clair 2014 Apr

Fungi fest at Lake St Clair Apr 2014.

Who can resist the flame red of aurantiporus pulcherrimus, seen here by the shores of Lake St Clair?
It was snowing lightly on the central highlands as we drove towards our destination, our plan being to sleep on top of the glorious Mt Olympus.  But this was not a peak bagging bushwalk: we wanted to see the view.

Cortinarius archeri
“Are we going up if it’s like this?” asks my husband, his voice not full of joy and hope.
“Let’s just wait and see. There’s still a half hour’s drive left,” I say by way of prevaricating.
We arrived. The mist swirled around us, but the snow had ceased. I went into the information office to check on the latest forecast and saw doom and gloom for the next five days. We even discussed giving up and going to Hobart, but both agreed that, having driven here, we would set out and see how the day progressed. What eventuated was a fungi fest. I had taken seven photos before the little nature trail sign number two had appeared. Hm. This was going to be a slow trip, but we were no longer in any kind of hurry, so why not linger longer and enjoy these colourful marvels, these hints of magic lands and fairies?

Entoloma sp I suspect. I couldn’t see underneath, and didn’t happen to bring a mirror.
The score at the end of the day was over a hundred photos of fungi, and not a single leech bite, which is amazing if you consider that in order to take most of my photos, I lie in the mud, or at the very least, go down on my elbows and knees, paying homage to nature’s little miracle workers, noble housekeepers of the forest who facilitate the growth of the trees I love.

Dermocybe canaria
The photos I have chosen are ones that I hope act as visual-poetic images, a single moment intended to connote a much wider field of magnificence, a whole world of forest green and elemental wonder that fills me with joy. The larger field of forest context is there, but blurred usually, just a hint of the rich world that is the kingdom of the fungus, but also enabled by it.

Entoloma rodwayi
I had assumed that my association of fungi with primeval charm had been taught to me via connections of pictures of fungi with fairies in woods, and then via Tolkien, or Shakespeare’s comedy characters retreating to wonderful woodlands for their happy endings, by Faery Queens or Merlin’s wood (although I love the lot). However, last year I took my one-year-old grandson fungi hunting, and he knows none of these stories, and yet he warmed the hearts of many who watched him by delighting in the tiny forms, calling me with unabated glee each time he found a new species (for him, colour or type).

Hygrocybe firma
Fungi are essential to the life of forests as we know them. Without saprophytic fungi (or decomposers who live off dead or decaying matter), our forests would be unmanageable piles of non-decomposed logs and unbroken-down leaves, cluttering up the space needed for new trees. As it is, thanks to the work of these agents, the trapped carbon in lignin and cellulose (made when the plant was photosynthesising) can be returned to the soil for recycled use by the next forest dwellers. Because of this, I walked through the forest enjoying the debris of mossy logs and fallen branches and leaves from the sassafras, leatherwoods, King Billy Pines and myrtles, not for one moment wishing it were manicured or “tidied up”, as this very debris is the heart of the recycling process that is necessary for the forest’s health. In the book Wildwood, Roger Deakin bemoans the fact that in England many “wood-feeders” have been rendered locally extinct by being literally tidied out of existence (136).

Hygrocybe lewelliniae

The other most helpful fungi are called mycorrhyzal fungi. These ones form associations with the trees’ roots – in which case they do a deal with the plant, making use of the sugars that the plant has made, whilst returning the favour by increasing the plant’s absorption of water and minerals. These fungi have also been found to be beneficial in aiding some plants’ resistance to certain diseases, and in helping plants to overcome poor or contaminated soils. Whilst the saprophytic fungi might be called the housekeepers of the forest, these (mycorrhyzal) ones might perhaps be called the chefs, nurses and doctors. Whichever the type I am looking at while I walk, I don’t see them without also taking into account their essential role, even if I don’t put it into words at that moment. Knowing it is like being told the wonderful ingredients of the meal you’re about to eat in a restaurant: it makes it all the more delicious.

This account of the benefits of fungi has entirely omitted the other reason that I love them, which is because they are supremely beautiful – that is, the ones I love are. The ones that enthral me most are the tiny, ethereal ones, with fairy caps and stipes as narrow as a spider’s web – the ones that connote enchanted woods and a world of limitless beauty, or the ones that are so viscous they almost glow.

Lake St Clair, the backdrop to this fungi fest

Mycena interrupta – that one’s a give away. The web informs me it’s known as the pixie’s parasol. It seems that association of fungi with the little people of the forest crosses all national boundaries.
So, on we went fungi hunting and photographing until we reached Echo Point Hut, where we dumped our packs with the tent and food for an excursion that was no longer taking place, and went on further, doing a recce up the slopes of Mt Olympus for the next time that we would be there to do the climb properly. It was lovely to spend time at this hut right by the water, set in forest that is so lush, with the sound of running water ever present. Nice just to be, and not to be passing through for once.

A waterfall we found whilst wandering around the untracked slopes on the flanks of Olympus
Note American readers: I hear many Americans calling fungi “mushrooms”, but in Australia this appellation is usually reserved for, say, the champignons (Agaricus bisporus) that go in Beef Stroganoff, so to call a poisonous fungus a mushroom could be quite dangerous in the wrong context. Besides, fungus is the scientific name for what we’re talking about, and so removes all ambiguity.