Our family went for a walk up to a little copse of trees together on fathers day. The sun shone down bright and warm and a cool breeze bent the grass upon the rolling hills around the lake as we climbed through the paddock.

We looked down on dams that reflected the blue of the sky and small parts of the lake that stretched out into gullies off the main lake.

We reached a knoll and then traipsed down the other side into the stand of thick trunked gum trees.

 We sat down and snacked on a few biscuits in the peace and quiet of the grove. Well not actually, we were there, so it rapidly became rather loud with the crack of sticks on sticks and logs on an old tree stump that apparently did not deserve to stand in the ground any longer. My dad and some younger siblings decided it was absolutely necessary that they get the stump out, or at least snapped off at ground level. And to cut a long story of noise, and cracks, leavers, clubs and flying sticks short, they did actually succeed. 

Then we set off again to walk down a different ridge line and back through the paddock to the car.

 Do you like bushwalking?

What did you do for fathers day?

I went photo hunting, exploring and on a walk down memory lane yesterday. I wore a woolly jumper and trousers but despite the nippy breeze which at the start almost made me wish I have worn one of my scarves and a jacket the warm sun soon made it a most beautiful winter morning.

I walked into a nearby paddock and on, going where I had never gone before. Mostly because I trespassed across the corner a paddock belonging to someone else. The main paddocks I walked through are land that is not really owned by anyone in particular (I think it is Crown Land owned and managed by State Government.) and so anyone can walk on it. But I found a place where a huge gum tree had fallen over the fence and squashed it. Obviously no one wanted to move it so they just built the fence again around it. It made a perfect stile to cross the fence with. So I did. Then I adventured across that paddock and two huge mobs of Kangaroos bounded away before me. 

Then I came to another fence, It had much tighter wires and all the strands were of barbed wire, but in one place a creek must sometimes flow so I ducked under there and entered another world. From a vast open almost treeless paddock the land changed to a forest of whispering casuarina trees. The morning sunlight shone of the needles and the wind blew through the trees setting them swaying all around me and making the calming whispering sound that the trees do in a breeze. 

I followed A little creek into the trees for some distance, lichen covered rocks poked out from under scattered pine needles.  All around grass grew greener until I could no longer tell where the creek really went. In fact, everywhere began to look the same, green springy grass among the lichen covered trees, only one large tree behind me marked my path. So I turned back. 

I walked along at the edge of the whispering wood. Until I came back to the first paddock, it is large so stretched the length of the other easily. I also found a small spiky native wattle bush. 

I had met a heard of black cows with calves on my way there and got quite close to many of them. On the way back I came across a different heard of colourful cows with sharp horns, they bolted when I came near, thankfully away from me.

 Before I made my way home, I went searching for a house that a friend and I and one of my sisters built many years ago. It is still standing, and as you can see quite impressive! We built a lot of cubby houses over the years but that was our last and greatest achievement, all the others eventually fell apart or were knocked down. 

 We called the house "The Two Chairs" because we had found a set of chairs dumped in a valley the paddock and managed to dig out two that were not in such bad condition and carry them into the house. They are still there, kinda, just tipped over outside and far more rusted and worn than last time. But it was quite nice to see that our 'house' is still standing. It was hard work of many days to drag all the logs there and prop them up.

We had  a name for this interesting tree too, but I no longer remember it. We used to walk in the paddocks quite regularly, but now no longer do anywhere near as much. It brought back so many memories of fun times with friends and all the crazy things we did together.

Can you see the kangaroos? 

Did you ever build cubbies outside?

Close to where we live there is a Traveling Stock Reserve, but it is not used for traveling stock, but is agisted. Still anyone is free to walk and play in there. I have always liked going out into the paddock and exploring or building houses with logs, branches and sticks. When we were little we would go collecting what I called 'moon stone' for I had never seen rocks like that anywhere, they were often a creamy colour, and they had sharp edges with smooth sides. I would carry them back home and put them in my collection. I have no idea what happened to that collection, I can only guess it got chucked in the bin with a lot of other junk, which I probably called precious things, but Mum knew better, except for the rocks. 

We went wandering in the paddock next door again as we often do whenever we have a visitor. Looking out over the river and low lands at the bottom of the cliff is beautiful. I took photos of all the flowers I saw while walking. I quite like these fluffy yellow ones, even the plants are an unusual colour. They are almost blue rather than green. You can see the size of the actual plant in the photo below.

There are no photos of it because it could cause my Dad too much pain. Like the pain that one of the other hikers..walkers... got when they sat on a leaf of a stinging tree... you may be able to see some of the poison filled spines in the photo. 

I drove my dad and Alice and Jane up the nice, narrow, dirty, pot holed, tracks to get to the start of the guided walk we were going on. The road... if you can call it a road, was surprisingly good in a few places, but there was one particular pair of pot holes... I saw the car in front bounce as it went through and I asked my dad what I should do and of course he said "Just drive straight through it and don't stop." I did. The car went down, the mud and water went up all over the car and the middle of the car scraped on the mud in the middle of the two pot holes...

We also had to pass a few other cars... Passing a car on a one lane dirt track is not the most un-nerve-racking thing to do. Sometimes there is enough room but other times... there is not enough to be in the least bit comfortable. We got there and surprisingly the driver of the car behind me was impressed with my driving and not at all bothered with my sensible speed of driving.

Then we went a-walking through trees and stinging plants. I managed not to get got until the very end, then I got an entire stinging nettle leaf on my arm... we occasionally got a sight of mountains through the trees.

According to this sign there were....could have been surveillance cameras in use....in this area...why I have no idea... 

We walked quite briskly....especially for taking photos, so mostly I waited until the way back. The track got quite muddy and slippery at times, I found I had to look where I put my feet to avoid falling in the mud. One time we heard what sounded first like a baby crying then we thought it sounded more like a cat. It was apparently a Catbird. 

Fungi, especially the little red ones, were everywhere beside the trail... and poor little squished ones on it. Some trees were really huge and one had fallen across the path so we had to walk under it. Fungi grew on nearly all the logs.

On the way back I ended up in the middle of two groups of people so I had time to get photos without being in peoples way, and I also got glimpses of some birds and heard many more.

It got rather dark by the time we got back. I used a flash for all the macro shots I took of fungi and strange spiky plants. I had to. The sun was on the other side of the hill we were walking around and there was so much rain forest everywhere that even if the sun had been out, I don't think the light would be so good.

In the mud splattered car on the way home I had a bit of fun playing with exposure and the reflector lights beside the road. I also took the original photo of the stars...which is not this one either... this is it without words on it when we stopped for a while to call home.