Friday, 2nd June 2000

I awoke before dawn, had a shower and failed entirely to capture sunrise. I caught after sunrise instead. Deal with it! Plus the flats next door had some nosey neighbours, otherwise known as rainbow lorikeets.

When in a new town, I usually check out the shops first, see if I can get any gluten-free bread and other such foods, then head off into the wilderness. And lo, so it was at Merimbula. The local Woolies was raided, food was found, and my little car carried me off!

I had intended a quiet day, not much driving, just a bit of puddling around, a 15km drive to Tathra. Now that is not Tath-ra, like most Aussies would say, but the more "cultured" Ta-thra. So I visited Ta-thra, more photos of more magnificent coastline, surf beating against rocks, etc. I found the local boat ramp into Kianinny Bay. Ack! The ramp is sheltered, well, sort of sheltered, ok, in the swell that was hitting the bay, not very well sheltered at all, by a point. The channel leading out to the bay and ocean is about maybe 4 metres wide? Big rocks on either side and a heavy swell pounding waves into the channel. Pleasure boats are launched through that???

I turned away from thoughts of small boat disasters and climbed up the headland into the top end of Bournda National Park. The track continues south all the way along the coast to the other end of the park, but I decided to give the next 20km walk a miss. Dunno why. I preferred to find the local plant nursery, and a good one it is too - Kangarutha. Has many native plants, and a border collie which insisted on being patted (you aren't leaving here without patting me! Nope, you can't get around me - I demand my tithe of a pat!). I bought a couple of little plants that I figured had a better chance of surviving the trip home.

I had also noticed an ad for an orchid nursery in a little town near Tathra. Thought it would be worth a visit as they specialise in cool climate orchids and native orchids. The signs outside said it was open, the old black retriever was happy to see me (doggy number two patting), but noone was attending the greenhouse of orchids out the back. I travelled on to Bega (that's Bee-ga, not Bay-ga), well-known for its cheese. The helpful ladies at the info centre there found a lovely little pamphlet that told us that the nursery was shut on Fridays. Need we ask what day it was that I visited, or that the ad I saw did not say the place was closed on Friday?

I had planned a quiet day. Indeed, I had vowed a quiet day, but like so many plans, it went astray. I had not intended to go to Bega - I don't like cheese and thought there would be no reason to visit. By this stage, my right hand was persona non-grata (so to speak or should that be mana non-grata?). It was smelling a little doggy. I was driving with it as far from me as possible. Still, we soldered on, having been informed that another native orchid nursery was only 15km up the road.

Dog number three patting occurred at the Riverview Orchid nursery. Yah. Some sort of little white maltese cross had to have her belly scratched once she had figured out that just cos I smelt of big dog didn't mean I was a big dog. Had a lovely discussion with the lady there and bought a number of native epiphytic orchids. One is in flower, but don't ask for pictures cos its flowers are only about 4mm across (ie not very big at all).

On the way back to Bega, I got waylaid by a little sidetrip. Mumbulla Waterfall, 14km. I rarely pass up the opportunity to see a waterfall, so me and little chops bounced and shimmied along a dirt track (I wish it were a good dirt track!) along to see the waterfall in Biamanga National Park. Mt Biamanga is a sacred place for the local Aborigines. In my ritual that I perform in such places, I touched the earth and introduced myself and asked for safe passage. It just seems polite to ask the local spirits such things. The interpretative trail to the waterfall had Dreamtime tales. They won't be big enough to read in the thumbnails but should be ok in the bigger pics.

The waterfall itself was pretty but not enormous. Again, I touched the running water (c-c-c-cold!) and introduced myself. The surrounding rocks were fun to scramble over, although I was pretty wary of the deep pools in the cascade. It was very peaceful. I was the only person there.

I drove onwards, bouncing over more dirt track - not many potholes but many stones and rocks sticking out of the surface. A number of plants were in flower - small wattles and what looked like strawflowers, only I am not sure that they are native to the area. Eventually, I found the freeway of all dirt roads - three lanes wide, beautifully graded and maintained. I drove in the opposite direction to that leading to Bega, with the assumption that such a big road could not simply dry up like a river tracked to its source. Nup, it came out onto a tourist route at Tanja (which was an exaggeration of the word hamlet if ever I saw one). Anagarru beach was just up the road in Mimosa Rocks National Park, along with the rocks that gave the park its name (for a ship that foundered on them). I found some more Dendrobium speciosum growing on some rocks only say 100m from the beach. For orchids, they sure must be tough.

The beach at Mimosa Rocks is made up of pebbles and rocks. This is not very normal for an Aussie beach. Even more unusual was the effort that someone had gone to in constructing hundreds of little rock sculptures that looked like Japanese temples all over the beach. It was amazing.

On the walk back to the car (ok, my ankle was shot to hell, so it was more like the hobble back to my car), I noticed a certain sort of leaf shape and brushed my boot across the sticks and leaves obscuring the leaves. Ack! Little tiny helmet orchids, Corymbas species, were flowering and I had almost taken their heads off! I tried to get a pic of them - they grow only about 1cm off the ground, so it gets a bit tricky and I had to lie down on my coat to get close enough. Dunno what the people behind me thought....

As it was getting late in the day, I bounced back down more dirt track (getting very sick of dirt roads, but I had quite a bit more to go!), and returned to Merimbula, where I chatted more with Melissa and Babet and Patrick.

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Dr Bunny's trip to Merimbula and Mallacoota/email me/last modified 30th June 2000.