Photos from Little Desert

The campground

A lizards head

There were a lot of flies

Xanthorrhoea at Little Desert

Xanthorrhoea australis

Austral Grass-Tree

General Appearance: A robust, densely tufted, tree-like herb, with a trunk to 2 m x 50 cm, with long, narrow leaves and erect, narrow flower stems, to 3 m tall, bearing a dense, narrow spike of cream flowers.  Younger plants often without trunks.
Leaves: Linear, to 1.2 m x 5 mm, diamond-shaped in cross-section, stiff, brittle.  Trunks made up of the persistent leaf bases of fallen leaves.
Flowers: Cream, roughly star-shaped, with linear sepals and petals.  Thousands clustered together in a dense spike, to 2 m x 80 mm.  (Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec)
Fruit: A small woody capsule.
Aboriginal Use: Important source of resin.  Young leaves and succulent roots were eaten.  Nectar was made into sweet drinks.  Flowering stems were made into spears and firesticks.
Other Common Names:  Bukkup (Koorie name), Kangaroo Tails, Kawee (Koorie name)
From: Viridans

They flower prolifically after fire due to a fire-initiated release of the gas acetylene which initiates the growth of the flower spike and the early release of seed.
From Parks & Wildlife Services Tasmania

And here I found:

Xanthorrhoea minor

Small Grass-Tree

General Appearance: A robust, densely tufted herb, with long, narrow leaves and erect, narrow flower stems to 1 m tall, bearing a dense, narrow spike of yellow flowers.
Leaves: Linear, to 1 m x 4 mm, triangular in cross-section, stiff, brittle.  Arising from a thick base which never forms short trunk.
Flowers: Pale yellow, roughly star-shaped, with linear sepals and petals.  Thousands clustered together in a dense spike, to 30 cm x 25 mm.  (Jan Feb Mar Apr Oct Nov Dec)
Fruit: A small woody capsule.
Other Common Names:  Bayonet Grass, Snake Charmers, Toolimerin (Koorie name)

Plants from Lerderderg State Park

Landscape shots from Lerderderg State Park

Photos from Yandoit

Veggie garden

Grr

 

Birds and Cows

On the hill

Fun with Duolingo

I'm currently learning dutch. It is good fun!

Very happy with duolingo, excellent program, love that it's free!

Here is a collection so far of my favourite sentences.

Brilliant.

That's the spirit!

Maybe in America...

Should probably lay of the hallucinogens

Camping trip to Karadoc Beaches

So it's been over 4 months since my last post!

I guess I haven't been doing anything interesting enough to warrant a post :/ Or maybe I've been doing so much interesting stuff I haven't had a chance!

About a month and a half ago, I decided I wanted to go camping along the Murray somewhere. I really wanted to go canoeing or hiking if the weather would allow us. Only problem is that I'm at either TAFE or work every day and my partner is at uni. So we finally caught a window where both our schedules lined up and we were able to go. So on the 5th of April, we started our journey.

We stopped in Kangaroo Flats for supplies on the way.

Our second rest stop was at Lake Tyrell, where we had lunch.

Lake Tyrrell from a viewing platform

 

Standing on the lake

After our lunch we continued on to Red Cliffs. The trip totaled about 7 hours including rest breaks.
We finally arrived at our campsite and it was so lovely. It had clean drop toilets. (Lots of caravaners as it was Easter weekend.) And beautiful bird life!

The snags made fishing difficult!

Tucker

[Bad quality] Panorama of our campsite

Although the weather could have been a lot better (it also could have been a lot worse) we still had lots of fun. We managed to get a couple of chances to go fishing and I ended up catching a fish!
It was a Redfin (introduced species) so I was glad to get it out of the water. We also filleted it (neither of us had done it before) and at what little meat we managed to get off of it! It was really yum :)

I will definitely return again, preferably in better weather so we can go canoeing :)