Another visit to Bullio

I had strayed as far as Bowral, on Saturday, to have Coffee with my friend Kim, and then thought I may as well keep on heading west.

I checked out an area opposite the Sand Quarry, near Joadja Creek, on the Wombeyan Caves Road, and finding no Orchids in flower there, I decided to ring Ken and Leonie at Bullio, to see if they were home. Ken had previously emailed me about some Orchids he had found - so there was an obvious point of interest out there.

I met Ken half way along the long private road into the hidden valley where they live.
First things first, I had to capture this gorgeous vista.

Lake Burrogorang and Bonnum Pic

 He then showed me the Orchids.

 I would not normally drive so far to see these, 

but hey, I had started out on the drive, for Coffee and chat,

so the rest was a nice add-on.

A nice colony of Pterostylis curta.

A close up of Pterostylis curta
seen from the side.

Ken showed me a few other things which shall not show, for fairly obvious reasons. Suffice to say, he knows where there are some good colonies of Dendrobium speciosum growing. It does not look as if these clumps are going to flower this year - apparently they flowered well the previous year.

Then Ken showed me a spectacular fossil. It is a fossilised leaf. It looks like a Eucalyptus leaf, but expert advice is that the venation is wrong, and anyway, it is probably way to early (geologically) for there to be any Eucalypts around at that time. Once again, for reasons of privacy and security, I will not show the fossils on my Blog. But it was fascinating to see it.

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We then set off in search of other bit and pieces. No new Orchids, though.

Ken asked my opinion on a small shrub with tiny white flowers which I was able to identify as Logania albiflora.This plant flowers prolifically in early spring and has a sweet perfume.

Flowers and narrow leaves of
Logania albiflora

Correa reflexa

Hovea sp, possibly Hovea pannosa

 

Pimelea linifolia ssp linifolia

There was a very nice specimen of Pomaderris intermedia growing nearby, with lovely rich, creamy flowers. it really stood out from the dry bush behind it.

Here is a "head" of masses of flowers of
Pomaderris intermedia

You can examine the petals of the individual flower of
Pomaderris intermedia

underleaf of Pomaderris intermedia

As I left the valley, I saw some small animal moving behind a bushy wattle tree. As I  moved slowly past the clump of wattle I could see this tiny little Red-necked Wallaby watching me, curiously. It allowed me to stop and take its photo, out the car window. I did not feel I had time to change lenses, so this is taken with my "close-up" lens, from 50 metres away, so it is a bit fuzzy.

tiny little Red-necked Wallaby

But I was so pleased to see this little fellow out and about without his Mum, that I like the photo well enough to publish it - faults included. You can see that his head is barely higher than the second line of fence wire. Way too small to be out on his own. Hopefully Mum was watching from a safe hiding spot. We parted on good terms, this little fellow and I.