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.