Solving a sticky case

This morning Yvonne noticed an odd little bundle of something on the patio where she was sunning herself. I thought it was just a bit of dead vegetation that had blown in, or maybe a bit out of a disintegrating broom head, which we have a few of.

But no, it moved. It was walking slowly but purposefully across the patio.

On closer inspection I saw it was another example of the extraordinary stick monster caterpillar thing, that I'd first noticed a few months ago, attempting to cross a busy street in Parramatta. It sticks its head out the front, and drags its heavy cocoon along behind it. Here it is close up.

After the earlier encounter, with the suicidal one, I'd spent quite a while fruitlessly searching the internet for images which might give me a clue as to what it's name was. It's like that with the internet sometimes. It knows everything, but unless you think of the right search words, it can be unexpectedly opaque. I'd been putting in terms like 'mud stick monster', among others. This new sighting spurred me on to try again, and this time there was success.

I think it's a Saunders' Case Moth (Metura elongatus). The caterpillar builds its home, and as it grows it extends it by adding one stick at a time, apparently by retreating into its case, and piercing it from the inside and threading the new stick in at just the right place. Each new insertion can take an hour or two. There are leaf moths too, and my specimen had a couple of leaves mixed in with the sticks. Maybe he'd had a slight identity crisis.

More about it, and pictures of the beautiful moth  that emerges after a year or two at:  http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/psyc/elong.html

In my researches I also came across a very fine blog where it was observed that in Australia, even the turds go walking: http://littleaustralia.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/stick-cocoon-creature-banksia-man-and.html  

I've also solved the mystery of the Thing That Hangs at the Garage Back Door. It's been hanging there for years, since we moved in in fact. It seems to be a used Saunders' Case Moth case.

N

Alien carrots and other beetroot

 I'm always proud of my home grown vegetables, even when they turn out to be alien monsters. The latest crop of carrots are as monstrous as they get!

They taste all right though. As do the perfectly formed beetroots - incredibly delicious things, freshly picked and cooked home grown beetroots.

I put it down to Sydney's exceptional drought of the last few months. We had a total of 46mm of rain over 131 days until the other day. Then there was about that much over a couple of days, and the garden and the bush are so grateful it's not funny. The carrots obviously thought it was funny though.

The beetroot's nicely cooked now. Must go and dish it up.

N

Wollangambe Crater

A group of us spent last weekend on a trip to Wollangambe Crater in the Blue Mountains National Park near Bell, on the way to Lithgow. Fabulous weather, great company, and magnificent scenery.

It's very much the saucer-shaped crater, and there's been some suggestion it might be a meteorite crater, though the weight of serious opinion seems to be against that.

It's a few hours of trekking across 'pagoda country' - with its twisted and contorted weathered rocky sandstone outcrops. And down near the crater there's the Wollangambe River to explore, with twists and turns, canyons and rock overhangs.

Quite a place. We'll be back.

N

Alive and well and still in Melbourne!

They moved to Melbourne a couple of years ago, and here they are, living comfortably and seemingly enjoying it even! We spent a very pleasant time the other week staying with old friends Zak and Farida in their Templestowe home. We went for a very enjoyable stroll in the Dandenong Hills, and dined in a fine seafood restaurant in Williamstown.

It was only Melbourne though. When are you coming back home, Zak and Farida?

N

We love showing off our city

Our favourite English visitors were in town last week. They're favourite because they loved everything we showed them, did what they were told, and ate everything that was put in front of them.

We showed them The Opera House, with its Sydney Symphony Orchestra and its best view in Australia. We showed them the Westleigh mountain men's mountain bike circuit, and the Westleigh wildlife (cockatoos, lorikeets, and leeches by the dozen). Then we showed them Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and its wildlife (several semi-wild kangaroos, and the odd crab in the mangroves).

We showed them the Parramatta rivercat and they showed themselves Bondi Beach, Watsons Bay, and the bus system. We scouted out the Spit to Manly walk, but rain drove us back to Balmoral Beach and its Boathouse restaurant. We explored North Head and the Quarantine Station, and we met up with our mutual schoolfriend from way back when, Collaroy John.

Then there was the day in the Blue Mountains. We showed them the Charles Darwin walk - a few years ago they'd shown us Darwin's grandfather's garden in Lichfield, England - and Wentworth Falls. On then to Katoomba and Echo Point, and then the once scary rides on the Scenic Railway and the glass-bottomed cable car (the glass is too scratched and opaque now to scare anyone).

One other cultural highlight was the Hornsby RSL. The reaction was priceless when we led them into the shiny pokie palace and its rather swish new tapas bar for rather fine dining. They had somehow assumed that RSL clubs were dingy sheds with broken glass all around.

We had a great time in fact. It's good to have an excuse like this to do a big hometown sightseeing stint now and again.

N

Shangri La, Mount Kailash, and the Kowmung River

I dipped my toes in the Kowmung the other day. That's been a mystical, mythical name to me for many years. I haven't yet made it to the other places, or to Lhasa or Timbuktu, but with the Kowmung River now ticked off, I'm well on my way.

I spent three days with bushwalking friend Bob in the Kanangra Boyd National Park, about 200km west of Sydney. I'd been to the park once before, 11 years ago on a bushwalking club expedition, but we'd headed out quickly on the three day wilderness hike to Katoomba.

On this trip we camped for a couple of nights at the pleasant and well appointed Boyd River camping area, and did day walks to see various bits of the remote park. 

The day we went down to the beautiful Kowmung River was one of the biggest bushwalking days of my life. We covered 28km, with ascents and descents of over 1000m, and much time stumbling around looking for seemingly vanished tracks. It was quite exhausting, and we put the navigational problems down to the National Parks Service's policy of deliberately not signposting some tracks, and having them removed from the maps, so as to have fewer tracks to maintain. (They'd say it was actually to reduce environmental impacts too, I guess.) Anyway we eventually made it down there, along the (still marked) Roots Ridge track, and made it back up before dark, in time for a nice evening in front of the campfire, eating freeze-dried cardboard and watching the stars come out.

It was a nice break, and I plan to get back there again a bit sooner next time.

N

(2nd photo taken by Bob Seibright)

Marathoners make it to Manly

Yesterday I led the bushwalking club's fourth annual marathon walk. It's becoming quite a fixture on the annual calendar, and a select group of three of us have started (and finished) all four of the 42.2 km events. We're very specific about the 42.2 kilometres. If my GPS machine says we've still a few hundred metres to go, then we find ourselves a few hundred more metres at the end of the road and we do them!

This time eight of us went to Manly. Not the usual 9km stroll from The Spit, nor the 11km ferry ride from Circular Quay, but the long way round. We started in North Turramurra, walking the Darri Track to St Ives, then across into the Garigal National Park, and down alongside Middle Harbour Creek. 

After lunch at Davidson Park we went under Roseville Bridge, paused briefly on Flat Rock Beach, made our laborious way around Bantry Bay, sat on the very thin rock sliver that is Natural Bridge, went up and down a few hills, and stopped again for a water refill break at Seaforth Oval. By now the short breaks were becoming more frequent, the blister-prone among us were developing their usual blisters, and those with mutinous tendencies were starting their mutinous mutterings. 

Nobody had to be flogged or shot in the end though, and we proudly marched past the Spit, along the beach at Clontarf, and into the streets of Manly - all pretty well before the dark set in. Our precautionary head torches had not been needed for once. We'd done the course in under 13 hours. Our junk food splurges before leaping aboard the Manly ferry were well deserved.

We'll do it all again next year.

N

Sydney's cup runneth over

When I arrived in Sydney 15 years ago there was a bit of a panic on because Lake Burragorang was less than half full. A very wet weekend fixed that up and suddenly it was full and overflowing. Warragamba dam had collected its full two trillion litres of drinking water. 

Which is just as well because it hardly seemed to rain for the next 13 years. Supply levels gradually dropped to around 30%, a very expensive desalination plant got built, and we all learnt to have two minute showers and wash our cars with a cupful at a time. (Actually some of us hardly ever wash our cars, if the truth be out.)

Suddenly we had two wet summers, and suddenly there are spill episodes again, and quite a sight they are!

I'd been to have a look at the 1998 episode, but had been informed the viewing areas were closed because they were building a new spillway. Then ten years later I made the trek out again, only to be told the spillway was still being built! So I'd never actually got a proper view of Sydney's pride and joy, until today.


N

The spill is indeed quite impressive, with water cascading over the top and through what look like small slits in the wall, forcing it into a powerful waterfall. On either side are the smaller cascading falls fanning out into delicate patterns before tumbling into the swirling river below.  Pity we couldn't get closer to the rapids, but we were still afforded a glimpse through the trees of the river flowing calmly again. 

Once done with the grandeur and prettiness of the views we made our longish journey back through western Sydney, stopping for coffee and a browse through the odd 'supa centa'.  Back then to our waterlogged garden where there's not much we can do until all this rain subsides.

F

Westleigh's wild weather

The east coast low that's been moving down the coast these last few days have brought floods again to Queensland and northern NSW, and mini tornados to some of Sydney's coastal suburbs. 

In Westleigh we got a good dose of rain, plus some rather big winds.

There was a tree down in nearby Westleigh Drive, bringing with it some power cables. And in the Espanade in neighbouring Thornleigh, we saw we'd driven under a tree which was supported only by the power lines below it.

As usual, the police, emergency workers and power company people did a grand job, and everything was back in order within a few hours.

N

Surviving Westleigh's secret creeks

 I explored Elouera Creek the other week. That's not a name you'll find on a map. It's officially unnamed, so I took it upon myself to name it, after the street that runs down to the start of it.

There are several unnamed creeks here in the newly created Berowra Valley National Park at Westleigh: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/NationalParks/parkHome.aspx?id=N1187

I took a renewed interest in exploring these little known and unnamed creeks recently, when one of them featured in the international news. A local boy with a medical problem took off with a small amount of food, and disappeared for nine weeks. His parents and the police feared the worst, but he was discovered in a little-known creek bed, alive, though only just, covered in leeches and with only half his previous body weight. A couple of senior citizen bushwalkers, keen off-track creek explorers like me, had stumbled upon him by chance. He was helicoptered out to Ruddock Park and taken to Hornsby Hospital. Rescuers said he'd have died within a day or two. 

 
Elouera Creek was a joy to behold. Waterfalls, caves, fabulously colourful angophora trees. Even things to eat, methinks, at least for the fit and functional survivalist: water dragons, fish, colonies of ants even.......

I've hatched the idea of exploring all of Westleigh's creeks and putting them all together into a boy's own adventure walk for the bushwalking club later this year. I'll keep you posted.

N

Celebrating Australia Day

We decided to walk around Cremorne Point this Australia Day and take in the ferry race and other happenings in the harbour.

Surprisingly, we weren't the only ones with the same idea, but we were happy to be part of the many family groups throwing down their picnic rugs and cracking open the bubbly....well, minus the picnic rug and bubbly.

One of the highlights was walking through a public garden planted by a local couple dating back to the 50's. Developed over a few decades it is now a sub-tropical paradise of ferns, flowers and brightly coloured shrubs, planted among the rocks and overhangs leading down to the water's edge.

There was also MacCullum Pool, but we decided to save the swim for Clifton Gardens further along.

Clifton Gardens beach and pier are a real drawcard. We swam and watched as big and little kids jumped off the pier. There was one great big leap performed en masse, just as I'd put the camera away. There's something very retro about the ambience here - one has the sense that kids and their families have been doing this for generations. A fitting way I think, to celebrate the things we love about Australia.

F

Miner vs mynah

One of the battles being fought out in Westleigh, and many other Sydney suburbs, is the one between these two birds. Miner vs Mynah it is, or Aussie vs Indian. They're both a bit noisy and both rather aggressive, but the chocolate brown interloper gets most of the bad press.

The native, the Noisy Miner, is actually a type of honeyeater. The Common Mynah, also known as the Indian Myna, is an introduced exotic, much like the Common Starling, which lately has become less common than its name suggests.

The three species are similar in size and shape, and compete for the urban and suburban ecological niche. I think it's true that while the starling is in decline, it's the native that's once again on top. It's been helped along by all the vicious propaganda against the Indians, about how they aggressively exclude other birds and how they're on a list of the the most invasive species in the world (City of Sydney website). There's even been the emergence of groups of vigilante humans determined to eradicate them. Sometimes you see little skirmishes between bands of Noisys and Indians, fighting for territory, garden by garden and street by street.

The City of Sydney says you can discourage the aggressive Indians by planting predominantly natives. It then goes on to say you can avoid the aggressive 'native pests', the miners, by avoiding planting natives. So take your pick!

N