Disappointed - you bet!

In a previous post, I prepared myself to be disappointed with the Rudd government's leadership on climate change targets. Today they followed through for me, and delivered on that disappointment in spades, with a miserable 5% target for greenhouse gas reduction by 2020.

Most households could match that paltry figure themselves by swapping a few incandescent globes over for fluoros, so coming from the Federal government, this can only be described as an insipid target.

The ABC reports today on sixty green groups who banded together to condemn this feeble policy. Add Wirra Birra to that, and make it 61.

And I don't think the good folk at Carbon Planet were impressed either....

Who's eating the bandicoots?

Quite possibly it's these guys......

These photos taken along our creekline with a borrowed Moultrie I-60 game camera.

These are neat little weather-proof, motion-activated, Infra-red cameras - designed primarily for redneck Americans who like to photograph deer, with a later view to shooting them. But they've got another obvious use too, in monitoring the bush for the presence of native animals, and that's how I've got mine deployed.

For those interested, this site has a good practical overview of the Moultrie I-40 and it's potential for use with native Australian fauna. (It's damn interesting site to poke around too)

I'd hoped to see bandicoots running around the creek where I've left the camera deployed, but I've been stunned to see the number of foxes (up to three in one photo) and the fact that they're apparently so active in daylight hours too.

Stay tuned for some more photos, and (hopefully) the demise of the foxes.

Not done yet....

Also known as Brunonia australis, Blue Pincushion is another of our natives that are flowering late into the season. Here's a few pics taken earlier today








...and a new one for me - Grass Trigger plant (Stylidium graminifolium), also flowering in profusion.







Photos courtesy of my new Canon 450D with Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens. Sitting down today with the Magic Lantern Guide was time well spent, and taught me a few new tricks that brought the best out of these challenging subjects.

Bush for Life under threat

A small but dedicated group of volunteers works at Wirra Birra each fortnight, pushing back the weeds and helping to maintain the quality of the bush. Mostly retired, our volunteers put in a solid morning's work every couple of weeks, and form a vital part of our larger bushcare strategy.

The volunteers are a part of the Trees for Life Bush for Life program - a program that trains volunteers in bushcare techniques, then assigns them to a site where they can work on a regular basis. Co-ordinators from Trees for Life produce plans for each site, which then guide the bushcare activities.

Our team of volunteers - Penny, Sue, Jan, Pam and Brian - along with co-ordinator Peter have had a long involvement with Wirra Birra, dating back to the owners before last. In some ways, they know this place better than I do.

This week though, came the news that Trees for Life had missed out on ongoing funding for Bush for Life, with the announcement of the Caring for Our Country grants. The Minister who used to care about the Environment, made the usual excuses about grants being a competitive process, but coming just on the eve of International Volunteers Day this decision is a real slap in the face for such a well-established and successful program, and for the hard working volunteers who have made it so.

You can read more about Bush for Life and their achievements here. I'm sure the program will find a way to continue in some reduced form, but meantime I'll be letting the Minister Who Used to Have Scruples know how I feel.

Last one for the year

Possibly the last orchid for the year is popping up across the property. Many wouldn't recognise Dipodium roseum as a member of the orchid family, yet the Pink Hyacinth Orchid is one of the largest orchids in this part of the world.

As it emerges from the earth, the shoots resemble asparagus shoots, as this picture shows.

Maybe I just like the name....

Gompholobium is in flower at the moment - Gompholobium ecostatum (or dwarf wedge pea) to be precise. It's a name with a lovely sound to it, and one that I never tire of hearing.

Gompholobium stands out due to it'spectacular flower, and its relatively large size when compared to the rest of the plant. This year seems to have brought out more Gompholobium than usual, as it's not an especially common plant. And what's interesting about the plants that we have at Wirra Birra is that the flowers take on a variety of colours, even in close proximity to one another.

The yellow form.....





... and the orange/yellow form.




One of the plans for next year is to collect seed from both forms of the plant, and see if they breed true to type.

Cute Little Critters

Each year Wirra Birra participates in a survey of Southern Brown Bandicoots, run by the very dedicated volunteers at the Sturt Upper Reaches Landcare Group.

The survey takes the form of a number of hair funnels containing an attractive (though ultimately unreachable) bait, with the funnels deployed along a line at approximately 2o metre intervals. The critters are attracted by the scent of the bait, enter the funnel, and leave their hairs behind on the sticky inner surface.

Here's what a funnel looks like - you can read more about them at Fauntech, along with other of their wildlife research equipment.

And here's what we're looking for......















This year we deployed two survey lines (18 funnels in all) and found definite bandicoot hairs in five, with traces of other species in another three. The experiences of other of our neighbours were mixed, with some properties with previous records of Southern Brown Bandicoot , this year reporting none. Foxes seem the likely culprit.

It's good to know that the little guys are still hanging on, and through studies like this we'll have some objective evidence as to whether they might just possibly be making a comeback.

Global Financial Crisis - another opportunity?

In a previous post I voiced the opinion that the recent high oil prices could be seen as an incentive, or an opportunity to do something to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels - and to do something to reduce our carbon footprint. Naturally this point was completely lost on our visionary Federal Government, who couldn't see beyond the populist appeal of the proposed Fuel Watch scheme.

How long ago that seems.

Oil that was near $150 a barrel, is now trading for less than $70, and the focus of the media has shifted on to the Global Financial Crisis.

But, I'll argue that this new crisis presents another sort of opportunity for us to do something to reduce our collective carbon footprint. The impact of a widespread recession is likely to be to reduce carbon generation anyway, but the real opportunity is for the likes of our government to show leadership and to help weather the recession through some intelligent investment in the future.

Rather than just throwing billions of dollars at individuals in (yet another) populist move to seed the electorate with cash, why not look to the (much) longer term, and to infrastructure investments that go directly to our 2050 carbon reduction targets? If we want to invest in infrastructure, why invest in yet more roads to carry yet more carbon-producing cars. Instead, now is the time to think of low-carbon infrastructure investment like public transport, hybrid vehicles, geothermal energy etc.

It's not the time to be contemplating rolling back some of the hard-won gains, like delaying the 2010 start to carbon trading in Australia, as has been suggested by the Climate Deniers in the Federal Opposition.

Strong leadership is needed to pursue these paths and, unfortunately, I'm preparing myself to be disappointed.

Orchids, Orchids everywhere

It's been a good year for Orchids here at Wirra Birra - to my untrained eye at least. This has been the first year that I've taken the time to seek out these tiny botanical wonders, and what a feast it's been. Seeing some of these little guys for the first time has been a wonderful experience, and slowing down (something I'm not the best at doing) seems to be the key to finding them.....

I'll post a complete list of those I've stumbled across over the past few months, but for now, here are three species that I photographed earlier this week - all of them in close proximity to the house.

Blue Spotted Sun Orchid (Thelymitra ixioides)

Common Pink Sun Orchid (Thelymitra rubra)






Pink Fingers (Caladenia carnea)

Bushland Blitzkrieg!!

Tomorrow promises to be a big day. With no other social or work commitments, its going to be a full day's work out in the scrub. Problem weeds right now are erica, and broom - both in flower, as well as the fumitory that's threatening to over-run the creek.

As the topsoil is still a little damp (despite a very dry September) I reckon we can get away still with hand-pulling all but the largest broom and erica, though will need to restort to herbicide for most of the fumitory.

Monadenia orchid (another escapee from South Africa) is also popping its head up at the present. Another bushcarer shared a tip this week - that modadenia can be sprayed with a small funnel attachment to a spray bottle. Just pop the funnel over the nasty South African interloper, and squeeze the trigger. It gives the weed a nasty jolt of glyphosate, without any undesired spray drift elsewhere. Worth a go, I reckon!

Silent Achievers

I spent a couple of pleasant hours tonight, meeting with some like-minded landholders from our catchment area. Nothing major to report, apart from the news that the dreaded Texas Needle Grass is moving in to our neighbourhood. I think the genie is well and truly out of the bottle, but no-one seems willing to call this one yet.

Meantime, it's great to be reminded of the silent efforts of many others across the Hills, all looking after their own little patches of bush. Not all of them are blessed with the same quality of scrub that we have, and many of them aren't nearly as fit and able as me. What keeps them going, as far as I can tell, is a genuine love of the bush, and a desire to actually make a difference.

A big bouquet too, to the folks at the AMLRNRMB who co-ordinate these little programs, and bring people together. Well done guys!

I'm not at all sure that we're winning just yet. But that's not going to stop me trying.

Sixty Years of Regrowth

In a previous post I referred to some aerial photos I had of our beaut little property going back to 1949. I obtained these through the great folks at Mapland and their historical search service. There's even an interactive search now that you can run yourself to locate old photos. And it's good value for money too, if you can find the right photos.

Here's what Wirra Birra looked like in 1949, presumably just after the woodcutters had been in for a bit of pillaging. (you can click the map to enlarge it)


And here's what it looks like around 2002 (again, click to enlarge)




We seem to have been very lucky, in that the stringbarks were felled for their timber, but the stumps left to re-shoot. While it's evident that things were a real mess back in the 40's, with the property denuded, and criss-crossed with snig tracks, things seem to have been left to regenerate naturally.

And for that we're extremely thankful.

Back in the 40's there wasn't the same weed pressure on a cleared bit of ground, and most of the native plants could re-establish themselves, without too much competition from the ferals. Today it would be a vastly different story. One of my longer term projects is to take some GPS co-ordinates off the 1949 map, and see if I can locate some of the cleared features or tracks, on the ground. My thesis is that some of the weed outbreaks we do have (notably the erica) will correlate to the areas that were hit hardest.

But that's for another day.

Struggling for Time....

Well, I think the weeds are winning. It's been a far busier time than I expected, and I found myself flying off to NZ this week, and then on to the US after that. No time to spend out in the bush, which is a shame at this most beautiful time of year.

Looking after the property is going to have to wait till after the 28th when I get back - and that's after I squeeze in competing in the second running of the Yurrebilla Trail Ultra.

But I was happy during the week to hear from my contact at the tediuosly-named Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resource Management Board who was organising a tour of the area by the Board members, and wanted to show them over our property. Unfortunately, due to other commitments, I wasn't able to help - but did manage to get them some aerial photos I have of our property going back to the 1940's, and which highlight well the desecration of the bush that occurred so widely back then, but also the stunning recovery that the bush made over the next few decades.

From what I can determine, our property was clear-felled for timber just prior to 1949, and has been regenerating naturally since. The big clue to this are the many multi-stemmed stringybarks on the property, that have regrown from the stumps from nearly 60 years ago. The occasional mature tree remains, and those stand out for their larger trunks and different habit. They're magnificent specimens, and it must have been a magical place back then before 'the axe'.

Meantime, the AMLRNRM board is managing to do some good works on the ground, and we've been the beneficiary of some of them over the past few years. I just wish there were more of these very practial programs, and a few less strategic plans.

Busy times ahead

Spring has sprung upon us, and the beaut rainfall we've had in the last month has things looking real good. Of course, that means the weeds are thriving too. Montpellier Broom is having a bumper year, and just coming in to flower, and the dreaded monadenia orchid is starting to think about blooming. Busy times are ahead on the property.

The big upside of spring though is the flowering plants, and this year is looking great for orchids in particular. Maybe I've just not noticed them before, but in recent weeks it seems that wherever I look, I see an orchid. Just in recent weeks I've spotted

• Mayfly orchids
• Mosquito orchids
• Banded greenhoods
• dwarf greenhoods
• veined helmet orchids
• Red beaked orchids (albeit not in flower)

(excuse the lack of scientific names, but my references are out of date - these things seem to change all the time)

For an experienced orchid lover that's probably a meagre list, but for me, just finding and identifying some of these guys for the first has been tremendously exciting. I've been out and bought the expensive new digital SLR camera (a Canon D450) and have been filling up the hard disk with photos. And the macro lens turns up tomorrow - can't wait to get out there and take some extreme close-ups.

Will post some photos soon.

Meantime, the Derwentia project continues successfully. The seedlings I raised earlier are now off at Keiran's nursey getting the type of love and attention I can't give them, but I have another few pots on the go as well - and I'm very happy to see new tiny seedlings starting to appear this week.

Kieran also gave me a large Derwentia he raised from my seed taken last year, and I'm planning to pop that into a prominent place in the front garden on the weekend.

Garnaut - initial thoughts

Unless you've been living under a rock lately (or at least living outside of Australia) todays release of the Garnaut report would come as no surprise.

Now, let me say at the outset that I've not read the report yet, as it's just on 600 pages in length. Anything I note below is really the result of a quick 'skim through' of the main report, and the analysis in the media.

But the first thing I've observed in a remarkable level of acceptance among the major players (maybe they've not read the report either) The farmers seem reasonably happy (agriculture has been excluded in the initially proposed trading scheme), the conservation movement seems comfortable (albeit that we could do more) and the union movement seems to be on board as well. Even the Business Council of Australia is apparently OK with the proposal to ramp the scheme up slowly in the first two years.

Predictably the Federal Opposition are dissenters. Not having learned the obvious lesson from last years spanking in the polls, Brendan Nelson and co., aren't exactly on board with the imperative to address Climate Change. Brendan wants to source his own advice (as if the last 12 months of effort by Professor Garnaut counts for naught) and is warning against "rushing in" (despite all the scientific opinion that says we need to do just that).

But even more disappointing to me than the Liberals who, frankly, we've come to expect this from, is the level of uninformed, unintelligent "commentary" from the general public. Here is just a small selection from some of the News Ltd web sites

It would be complete lunacy for Australia to implement this report, given that we are a miniscule polluter in global terms. This has got to be one of those government reports that gets filed away and forgotten. -- Dumfounded of Adelaide

Correct me if I'm wrong. So the poor really don't have to worry because no matter what they contribute to climate change they will be compensated? Typical Rudd screw the people that want to get ahead and reward those that don't! -- Barry of of don't blame me I didn't vote Labor

Tax, tax and more damn taxes. Does a Labor government know anything different? Already one of the highest taxed nations in the developed world. What fools voted for Krudd. Thanks -- Peter of Adelaide

To borrow a phrase from The Chaser - "these people vote!"

What I have picked up thus far from Garnaut is something I've been looking to see for some time, and that's a simple acceptance that we have to do this, and that it is going to cost. The sooner that we can get that message out there, the sooner that we can get on with implementing a solution. I see no way that we can make the dramatic kind of greenhouse reductions that are needed, without changing people's behaviour. And I can't see how we can change people's behaviour without a financial incentive to do so.

For that reason, and this is where many of course will disagree, the current rise in the price of oil has got to be seen as an opportunity, as much as it's seen as a problem. If the need is to reduce emissions, and if reducing car use is a part of that, then what better way to get cars off the road than for it to be too expensive to drive them? Isn't that kind of what London did with their congestion tax? According to the ABC, that tax, and the subsequent increase in fuel prices, is now causing people to saddle up their bicycles en masse instead.

A visionary government will see this, realise there's little it can do about the price of oil anyway, and take advantage of the opportunity afforded to bring forward some of the needed changes.

But I have my doubts that we have anyone with any political courage or any vision left, and that's sad, because we've never needed them so much.

Tomorrow, I'll find some time to get into the detail of Garnaut's report, then I'll head out into the bush with Bearded Dave and we'll do a few hours of bushcare work. That way I'll know that I've at least done my bit.

Creeping Change

The past few days of drizzle are most welcome after another few dry months. The gully that flows through our property would normally be burbling merrily by this time of year, but a few small pools are still all that it has to show for itself.

Wandering around the property on the weekend, the impact of the past two dry summers is still very evident. Hillsides that would normally be verdant green, are a sea of brown where whole areas of bracken died back last summer. Those areas are usually accompanied too by clumps of dead stringybark, among them a handful of the largest stringybarks on the property. At least one of the larger trees seems to have been missed in the Great Lopping of the 40's, so its sad to see such a tree go.

The bush will recover of course, but not quite as it was before. There will be a few less mature trees, a few less stringybarks - perhaps the areas covered by bracken (where the bandicoots seek refuge) will be a tiny bit smaller. And this is how climate change manifests itself - gradually.

Bit by bit the bush will change under the pressure of drier and hotter summers, and each year the Stringbark forest will recede a tiny, imperceptible bit. Species like the bandicoot will move away with it - if they can. Other species will move in, or establish themselves more widely and one day we'll look back and realise that the whole ecology has changed. Forever.

We're fortunate to own such a beatiful and biodiverse piece of bush, in such fantastic condition. And one of my Big Goals is to be able to hand our bit of bush over to the Princess Irulan when she grows up, in better condition than when we bought it.

But the impact of climate change is causing me to worry that that won't be achievable.

A good weekend

It's been a hard weekend at Wirra Birra, but a very satisfying one.

Saturday started off with a long run into Stirling and back with J and Z, stopping off at the Organic Market for coffee, as a small celebration of Z's birthday. Everyone seemed to be in fine form, despite the niggling injuries that we're all dealing with at present, and the 15km or so of running went past effortlessly.

Then it was off into the bush for a few hours of bushcare work with Bearded Dave. Wirra Birra has been infested with Pinus radiata in the past (and to a certain extent still is), so Saturday was about cleaning up a few of the larger trees that had been ringbarked years prior, and had tumbled into the creek. A few happy hours were spent on the chainsaw, chopping the logs into manageable bits, then piling up ready to burn.

Some purists might argue that the wood should remain where it falls, but the tangled pile of limbs in the creek, seemed more likely to harbour weeds, than to assist in regeneration. Pulling the logs out though did reveal a number of seedling eucalypts and acrotriche underneath, so I reckon the effort was well spent.

Saturday night was the annual trip to Coromandel Primary School for the Quiz Night, and once again our well-seasoned team stole the major prize. Highlight of the night was realising that "23 P of C in the BH", is short for "23 pairs of chromosomes in the human body" - can't believe no-one else got that one.

And Sunday was the bonfire. With the help of our friends The Maddens from Lockleys, a pleasant day was spent in feeding most of a large, dead pine tree into the bonfire. A bonus was taking a short walk in the nearby bush, and coming across a patch of Red Beak orchid (Pyrorchis nigracans). These guys weren't in flower, and probably won't be until such time as a fire goes through the place, so all there was to see was their unprepossessing leaves. But it's good to know that they're out there.

Meantime, by my count, there are another seven large pines in various stages of dying, along the same short stretch of creek. So this won't be our last big burnoff by a long way.

Getting into Hot Water

Wirra Birra recently went solar - which is to say we purchased a 1kW photovoltaic system, and installed 350 lites of Solar Hot Water heating. Thanks to the generous rebate at the time (one of the very few good things John Howard ever did), this was surprisingly affordable.

It works a treat. And from July 1, we'll enjoy the added benefits of the new photo-voltaic feed-in tariff - one of the very few good things that Mike Rann has ever done.

Wirra Birra also has a small, separate Bed and Breakfast facility (that we'll get around to renovating and starting up some time), but the hot water unit in it needs replacing. No big deal you might think, particularly as we have a spare, left over from installing the solar system.

But we reckoned without the new SA Government regulations on high efficiency heaters.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm 100% on board with what the intent of these rules are, which is to phase out electric hot water heaters, they're being a major contributor to greenhouse emissions. But just check out the details of the scheme, and how a bunch of public servants have started with a great idea, and turned it into a Heath Robinson-like tangle of rules and exceptions that just about requires a PhD to understand. It's just dopey.

I have no idea how the average plumber is going to wade their way through this mumbo jumbo either, short of hiring Rumpole of the Bailey to interpret it for them.

And how's this for really dopey - the regulations only apply to customers connected to SA Water! This is an initiative aimed at saving power, right? So presumably this means that customers not connected to SA Water don't generate greenhouse gases? It's just bizarre.

As it turns out we're exempt (I think), which means we can recycle the old hot water unit, and re-use the other one, getting probably another 20 years or so useful life. We hardly ever switch it on, so the I'm not too fussed about generating a little more greenhouse gas, particularly with all the other good things we're doing around the place.

It makes sense - the government scheme doesn't.

Everybody needs good neighbours

People live in our part of the Hills for a variety of reasons. A few (a very few) still make their living off of the land. Most come here now for the open space, and the semi-rural lifestyle - while mostly retaining their jobs in the city. Largely, there's an appreciation that what we have in our area is pretty special, and worth preserving.

But every now and then you come across someone, as I did the other day, and wonder just what they're doing living here. A few days ago I bumped into a near neighbour that I'd not met before. I was roaming around doing a bit of bushcare, and pulling up the odd woody weed or two, so when I saw him out with his gardening gear on the roadside, I assumed he was doing the same.

Not so!

On politely enquiring, it emerged that he was digging up a mature grass tree (Xanthorrhoea semiplana) to put into a pot for around his house. Briefly speechless, I reminded him that this was all very illegal, to which he had two simplistic arguments

1. it was his land, so he could do what he liked (it wasn't, it was roadside reserve)
2. there were plenty of them anyway, so digging up one wouldn't matter (it does)
   

Then he proceeded to dig it up.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that such ignorant types still exist, but to find them in our little bit of paradise was a bit depressing. As hard as I work around here to keep the existing bush in good condition, morons like this are out there actively undoing it all.

But two wrongs don't make a right, and we'll keep on fighting the good fight. Catching up with our more like-minded neighbours for drinks the other night reminded me that we're not fighting this battle alone. Another of the neighbouring properties has just had their Heritage Agreement approved, so that's another hectare or two protected in perpetuity, and in the care of two people I know that will love and care for the bush.

In the main, we really are blessed with some great neighbours, which just adds to the pleasure of living here. But, while diversity is meant to be a good thing, frankly I think we could do without of the moron and his shovel.

My little babies

In my copious spare time, one of my projects is to re-establish a population of Mt Lofty Speedwell (Derwentia derwentiana ssp homalodonta) into the gully that runs through our property.

Mt Lofty Speedwell isn't common - in fact it's damn rare. It's recently been nominated as Critically Endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Some estimates put the total number of plants left in the wild at between two and three hundred.

So we're fortunate indeed to have a small handful of this very rare plant, still growing on our property. And with help from others, we're preparing sites along our gully to reintroduce plants, and propagating new plants from seed and cuttings.

The cuttings that I took last summer still look miserable, but not dead, and I have great hopes for them reviving in Spring. But the great highlight of the past couple of weeks has been that my seeds have germinated. Using some very simple materials, and with the help of the magic of home-made "smoke water" I seem to have successfully germinated around 30 seedlings which, (putting this in context) equates to around 10% of the known population of the plant!

I'm a very proud dad, and will post some photos of my little babies later on, when there's a bit more to see.

Meantime, for the curious,below is what a mature Derwentia looks like in flower. This is one of my own photos, taken on the property. Many would mistake this unspectacular plant for a weed, and not give it a second thought.

Winter Solstice (well almost)

According to the learned astronomical gentleman on ABC Radio yesterday was the winter solstice, which seems to have confused our neighbours here in downtown Ironbank, who had our Solstice party down for today. The erudite chappie on the radio maintained that the solstice was in fact at 9:31am on the 21st, which seems to largely invalidate my red wine drinking exploits this evening.

But never mind. The weekend did turn out rather well. We had another 4mm of rain, which isn't much for this time of year, but any bit at the moment is welcome.

Some of the passionate conversations we had this evening with a few of the neighbours about the gradual urbanisation of our little slice of paradise (and related issues in the wider world) need a bit of reflection in the coming days. Always nice though to spend time with like minded people.

We also traveled down to Second Valley for a rogaine which I competed in with the Princess Irulan. Both of us were delighted that we finished first in the highly competitive family category, after a hard day of walking in the muddy forest, dodging showers and eating chocolate. A short stay in the very relaxing Boathaven Beachhouse in Second Valley with our Good Friends From Dulwich also recharged the batteries a little, and reminded us that we need to get out more.

In between all this, I did manage to dash out and relocate the orchids that I stumbled across on the 20th. With the Princess Irulan I managed to make a GPS reading of the site, and take the following photos, which make the case pretty strongly for these being Mosquito Orchids (not that these are particularly rare or anything, just exciting to a novice like me who is finding them for the first time)





























These two photos (which turn out to be pretty nice in the end) are the best of about thirty. Taking close ups with a "point an click" camera is hit and miss, and I'm thinking that a nice new digital SLR with monster-macro lens would be An Ideal Birthday Gift.

Mosquito Orchids

Managed to squeeze in an hour of bushcare work on the property en route to the office this a.m. Caught up with Jan from the TFL Bushcare team who was on site as part of their regular fortnightly visits, and wandered through the scrub at the top of the property.

We came across a couple of sparse patches of English Broom which we dispatched with much vigour, but the find of the day was a clump of orchids, about 2m across, containing several hundred plants, with several in flower.

Not having a camera handy (apart from the useless thing on the phone) we marked the site to return to on the weekend, when I can take some decent photos. My guess is that I've found a clump of Mosquito orchids (Acianthus exsertus).

Photos to come next post.