(The camera battery carked it, hence the low res mobile phone snaps.)
The Paperbark Forest is a wee sliver of bushland sandwiched between a suburban street and the golf course. It's official name is the Everglades Lagoon Wetland. I've been there before. It's one of my favourite bits of Woy Woy.
Wandered up to the forest mid-morning during the week.
There's been a decent bit of rain in the last week or so and the wetland's lagoons are fairly full. The ground is covered in leaf litter right to the water's edge and you can't tell where the mud starts and ends. Put a foot wrong and you'll end up on your arse. You gotta tread slowly from stick to fallen stick.
Had a bit of a wander about then picked a firm bit of ground to stand on, in a tiny clearing back from the water. Just stood there and looked and soaked up the leafy quiet of the place.
Small patches of light outlining the shadows on the ground of the big trunks, there was the plucking almost-cluck of a tree bird at the very edge of the lagoon, the high almost-honk reply from a dozen trees away. Over and over. They should just get together already and do brunch.
Mmm ... brunch ... Dug quietly in my pocket for a bar of chocolate, leant on a spider-free trunk and ate and listened.
The wetland backs onto the golf course and there was the faint sound of a golfball being sworn at. Eventually, the bloke managed to hit it and went off after it and the golf course disappeared from the aural landscape.
A chocolate brown butterfly with white-edged wings flittered about nearby and starlings or something twittered in the trees like twinks at cafe.
After I'd been still for a while, there was a faint rustling in the bracken under a cluster of trees. Some sort of wee beastie perhaps. Up near the edge of the forest, where it's sandy, there were a dozen small holes dug by small paws. Don't think lizards really hang out in wetlands that much. Could be wrong though. But there's definitely bandicoots on the peninsula and I know they like it sandy.
The breeze picked up again and two tall paperbarks moaned as they rubbed together as slow as Sunday sex. Above that was the soft silvery sound of the breeze shivering through the tops of the trees.
A whole stand of tall straight paperbarks had all grown leaning slightly in one direction. The longer I stared at them, I more felt like I was standing crooked. Started to get vertigo and had to look away.
In the drier ground, back from the lagoons, native violets spread out in wide patches. Just a few flowers so far, in the sunny spots, more at the edges of the forest where there was more light.
Long pale branches radiate out across the ground from the trees they've fallen off. Their shapes are flowing and take your eye across the wee clearings to where there's a lone baby cabbage tree palm or gun tree sapling.
A lone kooka gave that faint drumming ound in its throat they do before they laugh. Stood there patiently but it was only warming-up not actually laughing. It sounded like a teenager and I've heard them do that a lot. Maybe they can't laugh until they're adults.
In the spreading trunk of a big old tree, some kids had built a platform for a cubby-house. In the raft of branches laid overhead there were some sheets of newspaper and more sheets all around the tree like they’d been blown out or rained out. Guys, your cubby is in the middle a bloody paperbark forest. You sure there’s nothing better to make the roof out of?*
There was a cabbage tree palm every hundred yards or so. Along the edge of the forest, where it borders the lane, there was a thin line of casuarina trees and a gum every now and then. Other than that, the paperbark forest is all paperbarks.
Summer on the left, winter on the right
Paperbark Forest in summer
Bonus photo
Traditional Aboriginal uses of paperbark
Stuff
My favourite shop name on the peninsula? Acropolis Yeeros Chinese Takeaway. Menu includes, kebabs (kabobs to Americans), rainbow steak, chow mein and steak sangers.
Illustrated Ducktionary addition, courtesy of Ron in Fort Bragg
World wide walkies
Fabulous wilderness photos from Kansas
Local linkage
Some fresh this week, some a wee bit late.
Woy Woy at Wordpress
Fabulous fish and crab photos from a kayaker
Comment from old Woy Woy cinema worker on Stevo's model of same
Last chance to see, includes GPS & directions to the Woy Woy hieroglyphs
ACDC concert that never was
A year to the day (Roy Sainty finally found and buried, my sympathies to his family and best wishes to all those still missing a child)
Slightly eerie dusk photo of the beach
Fabulous photos from Empire Bay
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Paperbark Forest
(Woy Woy walkies)
Missed the Everglades Wetland talk completely. Buggered off to Point Clare in the morning having completely forgotten the talk was on in Woy Woy. Scampered back in time to see the last of the organisers leaving. D'oh!
Everglades Wetland Woy Woy (Click for embiggened versions)
Everglades Wetland is the proper name of the Paperbark Forest. It is a narrow silver of bushland beside the golf course on Dunban Road in Woy Woy.
This photo is the lagoon. The floating weed in the left foreground is alligator weed, according to one of the Dear Old Things. Got here from South America a while back in the ballast of a ship.
The trees are mostly paperbarks (Melaleuca quinquenervia, with a casuarina (she-oak, Allocasuarina) poking its head up there in the left of the photo. The casuarinas have a beautiful sound, a soft rushing howl in the wind.
The reeds are some sort of reed I can't find anything out about. Can't find much at all on the Everglades Wetland online. This is off some wildlife website:
"The lagoon...habitat for birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals." (CEN, includes map)
So it's home to various native birds and beasties. Plus a few golf balls no doubt, given that the golf course is only a fence away.
The bark of a paperbark in the wetland
The foliage of the local paperbarks is like this and not like the photo at the top of the Wiki page. Smallish flat tough leaves, wee nuts in short rows along the twigs, small creamy white and pale yellow flowers.
The Aborigines used to and still use the bark of the paperbark for all sorts of things from making cradles for babies and shrouds for the dead, bandages for wounds, sleeping mats, humpies (tent-like shelters) and canvasses for paintings. There are some paperbark paintings in Australian art galleries but now most Aboriginal artists use yer bog standard painting canvas.
Modern science is using the oil of the paperbark as an anti-fungal for all sorts of things, including Siamese Fighting Fish. (Wiki)
Casuarina foliage
See original photo at Wiki
Casuarinas have needles instead of leaves. Very fine needles which, if you have a good squint at them up close, have got segments like tiny wee bamboo poles.
Fake raffle targeting Woy Woy's elderly
Tell yer granny not to open the door to strangers.
From the NSW Police site:
"Bogus raffle ticket sellers steal from elderly
26 Sep 2008
Police are urging elderly residents to be on lookout for bogus raffle ticket sellers after four robberies on the Central Coast this month.
On each occasion, a group of teenagers have stolen money from each victims home after offering to sell them what turn out to be fake raffle tickets.
The group have falsely claimed to be selling tickets on behalf of a local youth or netball club.
They have been able to enter each home either by being invited in after gaining the victims trust, or by being allowed to use the victims’ toilet.
...
“We are advising residents to...[ask] to see some form of identification".
Local linkage
Steve's Virtual Tours
Michael's photos of Woy Woy & nearby
Missed the Everglades Wetland talk completely. Buggered off to Point Clare in the morning having completely forgotten the talk was on in Woy Woy. Scampered back in time to see the last of the organisers leaving. D'oh!
Everglades Wetland Woy Woy (Click for embiggened versions)
Everglades Wetland is the proper name of the Paperbark Forest. It is a narrow silver of bushland beside the golf course on Dunban Road in Woy Woy.
This photo is the lagoon. The floating weed in the left foreground is alligator weed, according to one of the Dear Old Things. Got here from South America a while back in the ballast of a ship.
The trees are mostly paperbarks (Melaleuca quinquenervia, with a casuarina (she-oak, Allocasuarina) poking its head up there in the left of the photo. The casuarinas have a beautiful sound, a soft rushing howl in the wind.
The reeds are some sort of reed I can't find anything out about. Can't find much at all on the Everglades Wetland online. This is off some wildlife website:
"The lagoon...habitat for birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals." (CEN, includes map)
So it's home to various native birds and beasties. Plus a few golf balls no doubt, given that the golf course is only a fence away.
The bark of a paperbark in the wetland
The foliage of the local paperbarks is like this and not like the photo at the top of the Wiki page. Smallish flat tough leaves, wee nuts in short rows along the twigs, small creamy white and pale yellow flowers.
The Aborigines used to and still use the bark of the paperbark for all sorts of things from making cradles for babies and shrouds for the dead, bandages for wounds, sleeping mats, humpies (tent-like shelters) and canvasses for paintings. There are some paperbark paintings in Australian art galleries but now most Aboriginal artists use yer bog standard painting canvas.
Modern science is using the oil of the paperbark as an anti-fungal for all sorts of things, including Siamese Fighting Fish. (Wiki)
Casuarina foliage
See original photo at Wiki
Casuarinas have needles instead of leaves. Very fine needles which, if you have a good squint at them up close, have got segments like tiny wee bamboo poles.
Fake raffle targeting Woy Woy's elderly
Tell yer granny not to open the door to strangers.
From the NSW Police site:
"Bogus raffle ticket sellers steal from elderly
26 Sep 2008
Police are urging elderly residents to be on lookout for bogus raffle ticket sellers after four robberies on the Central Coast this month.
On each occasion, a group of teenagers have stolen money from each victims home after offering to sell them what turn out to be fake raffle tickets.
The group have falsely claimed to be selling tickets on behalf of a local youth or netball club.
They have been able to enter each home either by being invited in after gaining the victims trust, or by being allowed to use the victims’ toilet.
...
“We are advising residents to...[ask] to see some form of identification".
Local linkage
Steve's Virtual Tours
Michael's photos of Woy Woy & nearby
