Mid-week field trip. CANCELLED DUE TO ROAD CONDITIONS - Flinders Plum Picnic Area, Peak Crossing.

 Please follow all the current COVID-19 restrictions especially social distancing guidelines. 

On the Sandy Creek Track

This is an experiment to see if there is any interest in mid-week outings.

Meet: We will meet in the Flinders Plum Picnic Area. Toilets, picnic tables and BBQs are at the picnic area.

Start Time: 8.00am

Activity: Walk the Sandy Ck track for flora and fauna spotting from the Flinders Plum Picnic Area. The walk is mostly flat and easy going. There may be some water crossing depending on the height of the creek.

Bring: sunscreen, insect repellent and protective clothing. Water for the walk. Binoculars and camera if you have them. Morning tea can be taken on the return from the walk if desired. Also bring a chair for morning tea in case the picnic tables are full.

Directions from Boonah - travel through Peak Crossing and turn right into Mt Flinders Rd.

From Ipswich travel toward Peak Crossing and turn left at Mt Flinders Rd. If you get to Peak Crossing you have missed the turn.

Follow Mt Flinders Rd to the picnic grounds. About 15min drive from Peak Crossing.

Due to the inclement weather this may be cancelled. Please watch our Facebook page.

Outing Report - Heritage Road, Spicers Gap, 19 February 2022

 

FFNC members on the Heritage Road
Photo: W. Dunn

It was a lovely day; the weather was perfect, the countryside lush, the wildlife was wonderful to look at and wonder at, and to top it off, great company. Members and friends ambled along the Heritage Road from the Governor's Chair carpark to the Mt Mathieson Trail junction and back. The photo on the left shows the birding fraternity trying to find the Red-browed Treecreeper. Unfortunately not too many of us saw it before it flew off! 

Bracket Fungi
Photo: L. Beaton

At places it was quite wet underfoot though the track was slashed. It made the cobblestones partially hidden by the grass quite a hazard. Though we marveled at the work needed to build the original road using only hand tools. We read the information boards about the construction while our President explained the geology of the rock. I'm sure we all agreed with Noela that ".... it was just so hard to picture this road being travelled by loaded wagons and coaches probably on tracks no better and even much worse than we were on ....  It really was a very long, dangerous route."

Rock Felt Fern
(Pyrrosia rupestris)
Photo: K. McCosh

Information board about
the construction of the road.
(Perhaps a little update is needed.)
Photo: W. Dunn

We saw a very large Dagger Orchid (Dockrillia pugioniformis). Not in flower though. We also noted many Elkhorns (Platycerium bifurcatum) decorating the trees with countless young plants and this Rock Felt Fern (Pyrrosia rupestris) - above right, was loving the wet season.

Another remarkable sighting for the day was a Goanna nonchantly making its way up the track towards us. Eventually it thought it was outnumbered so slowly headed for the thick vegetation at the side of the road and disappeared from view.

For lunch we gathered at the campground day-use area where there was plenty of room to spread out. Here we chatted about what we had seen and what seemed to be missing compared to other visits. The men reported that there were moths in the conveniences! Sure enough, more than a dozen Granny's Cloak Moths (Speiredonia spectans) were hiding in the gloom of the wooden building. One of them had three red mites sucking blood from its wing.

Granny's Cloak Moth (Speiredonia spectans) 

with the mites
Photos: L. Beaton

 Plague Soldier Beetle
(Chauliognathus lugubris)
Photo: N. Crepin

Fuzzy photo of  Soldier Beetle
(Chauliognathus tricolor),
but it shows the difference
between the two.

Spicers Peak from the Heritage Road
Photo: W. Dunn

Watch this space for the Species lists.

February Outing - Heritage Road, Spicers Gap, 19 February 2022

Please follow all the current COVID-19 restrictions especially social distancing guidelines. We would prefer people to be double-vaccinated.

Heritage Road, Spicers Gap

Time & place: Meet at the Boonah State (Primary) School car park at 8.00am. This change is made in case weather conditions make Spicers impassable. We will then go to Mt French instead.

Activities: This is a resumption of last year’s cancelled August outing. We’ll be walking along the heritage road to “discover some of the best roadbuilding practices of the pioneering period. Signs explain the techniques, used between 1850 and 1870, and you can still see remnants of the road built in 1860 by surveyor and engineer Robert Austin.” (from the National Park website) As usual the Field Nats interest is for everything natural. We may just chance to look at the historical aspects of this convict-built road. It will be interesting also to see how the area is recovering after the 2019 bushfire. It is 1.6 km to the end of the conservation section and then we have to retrace our steps to the carpark. I suggest we lunch back at the campground.

Facilities: The closest toilets are at the campground which you pass on the way up to the lookout. Picnic tables are here also. There is one picnic table at the lookout.

Bring: Morning tea, lunch, snacks & liquid refreshment, etc.; chairs & tables (as we won’t all fit around a picnic table); binocs, cameras, field guides, etc.