13th August 2023

Often when I go out to the bush I take a lot of photos. I also rarely get those photos off my camera in under a week and sometimes not for months.

I have been in the bush this past weekend and I am attempting to break the afore mentioned habit. Whilst in the bush the last two days I limited the amount of photos I took and made sure that as soon as I got home I took them off my camera and posted them here.

After I finished my Saturday morning work meetings I headed up to Ravenshoe. I intended to visit a location for the first time that a local told me about. For a number of reasons that did not happen so I headed to Millstream Falls, a place I have visited more times than I can remember.

There were some beautiful native flowers around the lookout and I noticed more above the falls. I decided to make my may down the side track to the top of the falls and check them out.

The top of the Falls is made up of some very interesting rock formations with the odd spot of vegetation and seasonal wild flowers.

On this day the rocks were covered with fallen pine needles from the larger trees there. Despite the rain this year everything was pretty dry and those wild flowers were looking a bit sad.

Most of the flowers out on the rocks at the top of the waterfall had wilted so I turned my attention to the small rock pools.

Two things caught my eye about the vegetation in the rock pools at the top of the waterfall. The water on the leaves was the first thing. It must have rained earlier in the day. 2023 has seen the area have considerable rain for every month of the year so far.

The second thing that struck my attention was that reddish plant in-between the leaves. Those leaves change from green to red and it is a pest that I know all too well.

Back in a dry December 2020 with much slower water flow over the falls and along the river that weed covered much of the water at the base.

That December in 2020 saw the water get so horrible that I no longer swam there and things that call the water home started to die. My wife called this fella Turtlekhamun when she saw him :(

Another location I have seen effected by this weed is the nearby Tarzali Lakes. The first day I really noticed how much of it was present was the day I got my best shots ever of a Platypus. Tarzali Lakes use one of those photos to promote the Platypus Park.

Saturday night I planned to sleep in the bush in my swag by the car as I usually do. Compared to March when the above photo was taken however it would be a much colder night!

When I woke in the morning, despite no rain overnight, both my swag and the surrounding vegetation were very wet. I decided to take a walk in the bush with a cup of hot chocolate until my swag dried off a bit before loading it into the car.

By the time I took the above photo of those wild flowers I knew the morning sun had dried my swag enough to make a move. I decided to head to nearby Coolabbi Creek.

Coolabbi Creek is one of those spots in the Ravenshoe area that I have visited many times over the years. It is quite a long creek and I like to explore as much of it as I can. Today the plan was to visit a new section.

When I eventually made it to this section the pond above the little waterfall got me very excited. I wrote “eventually made it” because I had to cut my way through Lantana plant to get there.

This is National Park but Lantana is a declared pest. It is sadly destroying much of our native bushland.

Strange how the Queensland Government demand that farmers do everything they can to remove Lantana from their farms yet I have never seen anything done inside this National Park to control it.

Link: Lantana is a category 3 restricted invasive plant under the Biosecurity Act 2014.

Another thing I have never seen is Platypus along Coolabbi Creek but there is at least one in this pond. I will be back.

Sadly however that weed that we discussed earlier in this post is also present on the water surface :)

As I sat by that pond I came to the decision that it really is time to explore some new areas if photos of things other than dragonflies were something I desire.

I love being at Ravenshoe and Barron Gorge but over the years I have taken so many photos of those two areas. I need some new subject matter. Time to move on and I have another area in mind :)