Do you have your umbrella?
It's wet today ...
We are stopping
in the heart of the rainforest
in the National Park
to take a look
at the giant Hoop Pines
and Bunya Pines
that thrive here
This is the distinctive bark
of the native Hoop Pine
which can grow to 50 metres.
The Hoop Pine,
in the centre rear of the photo,
has a sap
that the Aborigines used to glue
axe heads to handles
Baby Hoop pine
reaching for the forest sky
the heart of the rain forest
has a mystical quality
It can be very quiet,
occasionally the whip bird will
warm up and crack his whip
Hoop Pine leaves
The Hoop Pine's
long straight timbers
are milled for joinery
to the left of this Hoop Pine
and old fallen log
appears to be smoking...
the sun is heating
the moisture sodden rotten log
creating steam...
half way up the trunk
an epiphytic elk horn fern
salutes the morning sun
on the forest floor
a buttress root wears
a mantle of green
a little spider's web
in the centre of this photo
glistens in the morning light
and way down below
the mushrooms
grow -
by magic
pink magic
double pink magic
orange button magic
gold top magic
even purple magic
brown shitake looking magic
and yellow magic
multiple button magic...
and the sunlight breaks through
the brown patched leaves
like Christmas lights
adorning the rainforest...
*
Your Hoop Pine bark seems so different from our Pine barks. They do not even look related. I've read that this Pine wood is very good for furniture. And yes, I wish it was wet here too now. It's starting to get hot.
ReplyDeleteHello MoR
ReplyDeleteWell its getting cool here, especially at night I am resorting to the heater...
The hoop pine bark is very rough and prickly. The timber very straight and long runs.
Happy Days
My favourite Australian bird, the whip bird. It's even more Oz than the kookaburra.
ReplyDeleteMUSHROOMS! So many different colors and shapes!
ReplyDeleteI love the spider web and I love the steam and I already mentioned the mushrooms.... oh what a glorious place! Thank you for these walks, I feel so refreshed after yet another hot weekend day at work!
I mistook the Hoop Pine in the third photo for a rock wall at first glance...Loved seeing the rainforest through your eyes Delwyn...I love to take similar walks here in Ohio...just searching nature for what it has to offer.
ReplyDeleteI'm like Wanda: I thought the tree trunk was a castle turret! I think Australia's done a better job preserving its primeval forests than we in the US have. However, we do have the redwoods in California that have that steamy, cathedral feel to them, right, Dan?
ReplyDeleteI was feeling a little psychedelic with the rainbow of mushrooms!
Thanks, Delwyn, for an ever-new adventure!
Delwyn,
ReplyDeleteNew Zealand is amazing. It would be the first on my travel list if it was not so far.
Beautiful post. You have a talent for exposing the small detail and giving it importance.
And here the real summer is starting, temperatures in the 30s C, long evenings on the terrace...
Ruslan
Hi Ruslan
ReplyDeleteActually I am in Australia. You may have become confused as I took a little trip to NZ recently to visit my parents.
And yes it is along way. We used to stop in Singapore of Hong Kong to break the trip but now stop in Japan - far more interesting...
Happy Days
Hello Margaret
ReplyDeleteI took another good look at the Hoop Pine bark and it is like stacked stones - there is a popular garden wall facing that resembles the bark around at present.
No castles in Au I'm sorry, although the indigenous people have been here for eons the castle builders only came in the 1800s.
Happy Days
Wanda
ReplyDeleteI told Margaret I agree with your wall idea.
It is always exciting to leave on a walk wondering what treasures the day will yield...
Happy Days
Hello Tulsa
ReplyDeleteI love your enthusiasm and encouragement - thank you Tulsa,
sometimes I think, oh these pics are not that interesting and then you come along and show that they appeal to you and I feel gratified that I have posted them...
Happy Days
Hello RR
ReplyDeleteDid you see a few weeks back that I actually saw two of the whip birds singing a duet - although they can be heard they are not commonly seen.
Yesterday in the bush they were singing and a group of foreign students came along in the opposite direction so we told them to listen. Unfortunately they didn't speak English so we ended up mimicking the bird!!!!
But then fortunately he repeated his call then and there, otherwise there would be a group of foreign visitors wondering about the behaviour of AU bush walkers!!
Happy Days
hi delwyn, the little magic mushroom buttons were really lovely. it amazes me to see how they appear almost as if from nowhere. so many different colours. a lovely post and yes, the hoop tree does look like a stone wall doesn't it!!! steven
ReplyDeleteThe Hoop pine really does have an interesting bark. Are they endangered because of the logging or is the forest protected?
ReplyDeleteHello Lizzy
ReplyDeleteI was asking my husband about the hoop pines the other day - he is a developer and hoop pine is used in building.
My park is a National Park and therefore 100% protected and there are only a dozen or so hoop pines in there.
I need to find out if they are planted like the other pines commercially or milled from old forest areas.
Happy Days