Exploring the Pilliga - Part 1 - Dandry Gorge

As I said in my last post, the main reason for visiting Baradine was to see the wild flowers in the Pilliga Scrub.  We had been given an introduction to this area when we attended the first Scrub Stitchin'.  Have a look here to see our visit to Dandry Gorge.

When we told Miss Jules of our outing, she and Smithy decided to join us for the day, which was a nice bonus.

The sign to the entrance of Dandry Gorge is rather stunning.  I love the colour of the local stone.  So nice and warm.

When you are planning on taking a bush walk, it is important to build up your energy.  Miss Jules provided freshly baked scones with jam and cream and we supplied the home made bikkies.  Yes, we rough it in the bush.

Once we were fed and watered we headed off.  This is the sign we saw on our last visit which sparked our interest in returning.  Can you imagine seeing this sort of colour in the Pilliga Scrub?  We couldn't.

Let's go for a walk and see what we can find, and of course, enjoy the Sculptures in the Scrub as we go along the top of the gorge.

The weather was quite cool and grey, which made the colours of the flowers just glow. It also made walking rather pleasant.

It is such a nice walk.  The National Parks have done a fantastic job with the walkways.  Yes, there were loads of wild flowers, but I'll share them at the end.

The walk continued down in the base of the gorge and the landscape is quite different.

As I said, quite different. It has its own little microclimate.  Hardly any of the wild flowers we say on top of the gorge were growing down here, but there were some different ones on show.

Some of the cliffs were quite high.  Can you spot the sculpture at the top?

There has been a flood through here.  It was hard to imagine the volume of water required to leave so much debris so high in the trees, when normally there is just a trickle under the sand of the creek.

I love this photo Mick took.  I think that is what Miss Jules and I were like for most of the walk.  We couldn't believe how many flowers we found.  To our amazement, we came across the majority shown on the sign at the start of the walk. 

We met some people at the camp ground who were visiting just to see the orchids.  They were very excited to find them.

We were on the lookout for flannel flowers, but the still closed bud above was the best we could do.  I'm guessing they would have been blooming shortly after our visist.

There were so many different varieties of wattle.  

We saw lots of grass trees.  Some were in full flower, some just starting to bloom.  The individual flowers were so delicate.  What we did notice was that there were no tall ones.

When we visited the first time I was somewhat surprised to find a little maidenhair fern at the base of the cliff down in the gorge, despite conditions being very dry.  Therefore, I was on the lookout for ferns again.  Firstly, I found the little rock ferns.  I came across these as a kid where we used to collect fire wood and even took some home and had it growing in a pot for quite some time.  Once we descended into the gorge I came across a couple of different varieties tucked into the cliff, but still no maidenhair.  Finally, not far before we climbed back out I came across a lovely large clump of maidenhair fern.  It is such a delicate plant to find in such a harsh landscape.  It just goes to show how diverse the Australian bush is.

I think we timed our visit perfectly, as all the flowers we saw were at their prime.   I read somewhere that a botanist found over 100 different plants within one metre of the path.  I'd believe it.

The sign at the start of the walk recommended that you allow two hours for the walk and we easily spent that long, as we took in the views and hunted for flowers. 

We still had more exploring to do on the day, but I think this post is long enough already.  More soon.