Sunday 17 September 2023
Photos courtesy of Tom and Donna. Walk Report courtesy of Walk Leader Donna
Six of us were lucky that this walk fell on the one day that happened to be below thirty degrees amongst a sudden early spring heat wave. After an adventurous car trip to the start along the now degraded Misons Road, we had made the most of the day by starting a little earlier and ensuring that the hilly part of the walk was completed first.
Whilst this is a ‘new’ walk in the Mogo State Forest, around the Pollwombra Mountain area, it does include part of Betty’s famous Orchid walk, the highlight of which is a wonderful tall granite rock full of orchids on top. The timing of this walk was carefully crafted by the walk leader Donna G, as early September has traditionally been the time when the orchids have previously been in full spectacular bloom. You can imagine her utter depths of distress when, after dragging eager participants up and down hills and braving Death Adder country, it was found that the orchids weren’t in bloom. In an attempt to console her and deter her from curling up in the fetal position in tears, everyone agreed that it was still a spectacular sight and they were all still pleased to have visited the feature. This was somewhat comforting so we continued on with our 12km hike.
The area, which has had vigorous regrowth post 2019/20 fires is now becoming very dry with many eucalypts and wattles succumbing to the recent dry spell. Fortunately it is still being kept open with recent trail bike activity. We continued along the bike trails and made our way to a lovely granite creek for lunch. The topic of discussion was the various rock formations and what they resembled. Whilst Rob L was in agreeance that one of the rocks looked like a sphinx, he couldn’t get his head around the fact that one of the rocks looked like a dog’s head. Even though everyone could see the resemblance, Rob stated that one would have to partake in illicit substances to see the dog face. Perhaps that was easier to allege rather than have to organise an appointment at Specsavers!! Maybe readers can be the judge……