Paperbark Forest

(Random walkies in Woy Woy)

The Paperbark Forest is one of my favourite spots on the Peninsula. It's official name is the Everglades Lagoon Wetland, because it's next to the Everglades golf course.

The area of Woy Woy South the forest and the golf course are in was pretty boggy and swampy before it was developed for housing and golf. The streets on the northern side of the golf course are named Florida Avenue, Miami Avenue and Everglades Crescent, the street trees are paperbarks and the lanes behind the houses are ditches instead of the usual drive-able lanes.



Bigger, bushier

Strange red flowers on a large bush on the edge of the forest.



Bigger

The golf course visible through the thin end of the forest. It was a warm clear day and the golfers were puttering about happily and stopping for a yack in the shade of the trees.

The trees on the golf course are mainly paperbarks and banksias, plus some pines up the Veron Road end.



Bigger

Yellow whatsit bush. Broom, I think someone said last week.



Bigger

Wee blue flowers on the forest floor. Don't think they're native.



Bigger

Sheets of paperbark bark slowly peel from the trees, hanging down all through the forest.



Bigger

The bark is layers and layers of sheets as thin as onion skin with string strips between them.



Bigger

Into the forest, with the glint of the lagoon visible through the trees.



Bigger

The lagoon after La Nina's rain. Still and silent, but teeming with life. A lovely green jewel in a tiny hidden forest.

Other than the occasional cry of victory or despair from the golf course, it's quiet and still and only the sound of a bird slowly wading and the breeze in the crowns of the trees can be heard.

Paperbark Forest in 2005



Sydney & Kormoran found

Australia's great wartime mystery solved. The wrecks of the German warship Kormoran and HMAS Sydney have been found at last, off the coast of Western Australia. It's been 66 years snce all those boys, ours and theirs, were lost.

Kormoran on Wiki (Deutsch)

Sydney on Wiki

HMAS Sydney II and the Kormoran

HMAS Sydney website

SMH Faces of the lost found at last - SMH slideshow of the men who went down on her*

Video

Remembering life on board HMAS Sydney II

HMAS Sydney piped home in Geraldton

Historic protection for HMAS Sydney, Kormoran



* Who were aboard her when she sunk! What filthy minds you buggers have.

King tide

(Davistown walkies)

High tide this morning was bloody high. It's full moon and and the tide had swallowed all the wee beaches round the estuary and submerged half the private jetties and dozens of dingies.

The public jetties are made of sterner stuff but the Dear Old Things and I needed sherpas to get up the steep slope of the gangplank onto the Saratoga. They were off to the Davo for a steak sanger and a shandy and I was off to finish off the last few streets of Davistown.




King tide creek Lillipilli Street Davistown. Edge of the wetland beside the road under water.

Lillipilli is a native plant, "a bush" says the Dear Old Thing downstairs, "excellent for hedges". There's some good close-ups of lillipilli flowers and inhabitants here.



Wetland between Lillipilli Street and Murna Road. Looking down through the shallow water I could see the cracked earth of the drought years slowly swelling with moisture and little water critters playing about.

The wetlands are "Swamp Sclerophyll Forest", as I rabbitted on about a while back when I did Cockle Bay Wetland. This swamp is not far from Cockle Bay, a bare 200 metres.




Tidal Waters villas on a canal, end of Davis Avenue Davistown.

If you'd asked me what I expected to find lurking at the end of an ordinary-looking street in Davistown I would not have said a canal, but a canal there was. It led out past the Davo and into Kincumber Broadwater. The villas each had their own little stone steps leading down to a miniscule landing and a nice ring to tie their dingy up. It looked rather fun.




Canal running beside Murna Road Davistown. The canal leading off the Davis Avenue canal and out past the Davo and into Kincumber Broadwater. You can't see it from Murna Road unless you poke your head through the trees beside the road.




Davistown Store c.1920 McCauley Street Davistown

Not sure what this building does now. Seems to be some sort of office out the back and the front seems uninhabited.

Circa 1920 says my hist list, and it looks it. Nice inter-war bungalow. Right next to the public wharf too so handy for the boating trade in its days as a shop.

Lovely cool east wind again today. Yesterday I sat on the balcony for hours just watching it gusting in the old gum next door. Over at Davistown I sat today on the foreshore and listened to it roar soft and cool through the needle-leaf pines and the water slap and splash against the tied-up boats.




Updated my walkies progress map at last.

Saratoga and Davistown are at 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock from Woy Woy.

Walkies finished marked in solid orange. Walkies unfinished marked in orange stripes.


Still got a bit to go of Saratoga and Hardys Bay etc. Gosford I've done a bit of but not much. Bradys Gully cemetery was a North Gosford walk.


Walks I have finished since I started

The Peninsula: Woy Woy, Blackwall, Umina, Ettalong, Booker Bay, Pearl Beach & Patonga
Correa, Horsfield, Phegans & Woy Woy Bays
Parks Bay
Koolewong/Murphys Bay
Tascott
Point Clare
Longnose (Point Frederick)
Davistown
Empire Bay
St Huberts Island
Daleys Point
Fishermans Bay
Wagstaffe

Walks I've done bits of since I started

Kincumber
West Gosford (might've finished this but can't be buggered looking it up)
East Gosford & Springfield
Gosford
Hardys Bay
Pretty Beach

(There's a better list somewhere in my archives. If anyone's got the URL for it, pop it in the comments there's a dear, I've spent half an hour looking for the bastard.)