Eastward Ho!

After a couple of friends visited an attraction in Yarra Junction last summer, we made an arrangement for the three of us to go there together this summer. This is the week we settled on. Unfortunately one of us had to cancel, and my own participation was in doubt until yesterday, due to uncertainty about my mother's situation. My first step was to travel 150km east, to spend the night at the home of skippingstitches, ready to travel the last 40km tomorrow.

After visiting my mother (who has been moved to a quieter room, but this one has even less view than the previous one. In the new one, the bottom section of the windows has been painted over.) I took a train to Melbourne, then a suburban train to the eastern suburbs. I arrived early enough for us to take a trip this afternoon to the TarraWarra Museum of Art.

Avenues of poplar trees lining the driveways:

Netted grapevines above the carpark:

And in the foreground of a view very different to the basalt plains of the western side of Melbourne:

The exhibition we had come to see is Assembled: The Art of Robert Klippel. My flashless phone photos can not do the pieces any justice, so click that link if you would like to get a better idea of his work.

The sculptural pieces were fascinating, and made for interesting shadows,

but I liked a lot of his two-dimensional works as well, such as this lithograph with gouache and collage, (Untitled),

In the grounds of the museum is this installation; Valhalla by Callum Morton.

Callum Morton was the creator of the somewhat creepy large head I visited last month. As this explanatory sign says,

this work is also disturbing. There was no simulated smoke or silent attendant today, but the sounds experienced inside the work were unsettling.

I enjoyed this visit to a place I didn't know existed before today, and am looking forward to tomorrow's adventure.

April Field Trip

Although we are in April, this was the first field trip for the year. The trips for both February and March had to be cancelled because the scheduled days were severe fire danger days, and declared as total fire bans. The Field Naturalists don't run excursions on Total Fire Ban Days. Even if they did, we would not want to be away from the house on days like that - we need to be home, ready to evacuate if necessary.

Our first stop today was Macarthur Park Wetlands at Miners Rest.

The wetlands are not natural, but were created to deal with the run-off from an adjacent housing development. But they successfully attract many species of wildlife.

We saw lots of birds, but these were new to me:

Chestnut teal ducks (Anas castanea) looking for food amongst the azolla fern which covers a lot of the water.

The next stop on our tour, Mt Hollowback, was completely different.

It had excellent mobile phone reception! It was also incredibly windy. It's a popular spot for hang-gliders and paragliding. There were some guys up there setting up model gliders to fly, but they didn't launch them before we left.

There are great views across the volcanic plains of western Victoria:

Where everything looks very dry:

No green to be seen:

Waubra wind farm on the horizon:

Our next stop was Mullahwalla wetlands, although the wetlands were rather lacking in water:

Look - away in the distance there is still a little bit of water:

And through a telescope it was possible to identify the birds swimming there. No hope with just the camera.

We need some rain.

The last part of the excursion could not be photographed. We went for a walk in the bush after dark, searching for nocturnal birds. Our guide for the walk has done a PhD studying the tawny frogmouth. We walked for an hour or so through bushland, with only a few torches covered in red cellophane to light the way. We didn't see any birds, although we did hear an owlet nightjar at one point. But it was an amazing experience to walk silently through the bush in the dark.

Happy Christmas!

I had Christmas lunch today in Ocean Grove, a seaside town about 100km south-west of Melbourne.

Decorated Norfolk Island Pine, Araucaria heterophylla, in someone's front yard:

I like the way the smallest branches form their own star on top of the tree.

After lunch I took a little walk to look at the beach. The tide was in, so the beach was quite narrow. This is looking towards the heads of Port Phillip:

You might notice a ship about to negotiate the heads in the top right of the picture. Part of the beach in the foreground is temporarily fenced off (the orange poles) to protect the nest of an endangered Hooded Plover. There are two babies in there somewhere, and lots of signs up asking people to keep their dogs leashed, and to keep to the water's edge when walking along that part of the beach.

Looking in the other direction, you can see a few people enjoying the traditional Christmas Day afternoon at the beach, although you might have to enlarge the photo to see most of them.

Hope you have had a wonderful Christmas day wherever you are!

Shade

This avenue of beautiful trees provided some welcome shade as I walked home on a sunny afternoon:

The trees were planted in August 1919, one for each soldier from this suburb who was killed in WWI. Each was planted by a relative or friend of the soldier. Nearly 100 years later we can enjoy the results of that act of hope for the future.

Steam Trip

Some pictures from a wonderful day out to take a ride on the Victorian Goldfields Railway:

Hanging Rock (no picnic today).

Gorgeous gazania at Maldon station.

Paulownia plantation in flower

Oh yes, and there was a train too.

It chugs between Maldon and Castlemaine slowly enough for you to enjoy the scenery and the wildflowers beside the track.

Lunch With A View

Looking towards Barwon Heads and Bass Strait from the restaurant window: