The gullies gave way to pretty open dry eucalypt forest. There was evidence of fire from seasons past, like this half-burned tree.
On the group, pre-spring was in full-swing with plenty of wild flowers in bloom.
Rice flowers.
Bacon and egg peas.
Native orchid.
There were plenty of people about, even on a cool, blustery morning. Kids were paddling in the shallow. There was a group of (what looked to be) little nippers training, and of course the occasional surfer. Off-shore, the tankers/cargo ships were lined up like ducks on the horizon.
The vegetation was of the usual beach kind, with lots of pig face about. It was nice to see them blooming.
Boodjamulla (formerly Lawn Hill) National Park, is actually a very large place. It encompasses both the gorge area, Riversleigh fossil fields and beyond, all the way to the Northern Territory border.
A mere kilometre or so from the gorge, the landscape once again turns dry.
The geologists can’t help having a squizz at the rocks.
I was more interested in the flora. There were, once again, long wattles.
But I was more fascinated by this tree.
And the mottled bark pattern on its trunk.
Was it caused by insects or naturally occurring?
From the previous posts, you can see that the landscape at Louie Creek is very diverse. So is the flora.
Unfortunately, it’s also overrun with weeds.
Although the weeds can be pretty.
The bark of the trees along the creek have interesting patterns which I have not seen before.
But away from the creek this white gum ruled.
But I liked the lilies best. Pity the flowers hadn’t begun to bloom as yet.
The creek itself looked very inviting.
But there were also interesting things to look at beside the creek. This flower looks to be a weed, but it was pretty nonetheless.
And in the shade, I saw what seemed to be an old midden, going by the buried shells. The creek looked to be a resting place from way back.
Aside from termite mounds, there were some unusual grevilleas growing there.
These grevilleas seemed to only grow on rocky, sandy hillsides. We didn’t find them on the plains. They were certainly wild and pretty in the golden light.
There were quite a few species blooming in the Dry, only I wasn’t sure which were natives and which were introduced (and so a weed). Which, do you think, is which?
Isn’t it funny that they’re all a shade of pink-purple, out here in the arid areas?
It might be the middle of wattle season down south at the moment, but wattle season was already in full swing up north at the beginning of July.
The wattle most common at Adels Grove had long, compact flowers. These bushes were prolific early on in the walk to Lookout Hill.
From above, the Riversleigh landscape seemed a bit uninspiring at first. It had none of the extraordinary coloured and shaped sandstone from Kakadu and Central Australia, or any extraordnary trees.
It was only up close that I learned to appreciate the different species. The gums with their pale trunks – different from the ones found in the Red Centre.
The acacia bushes, in bloom.
And other unusual flora.
But most common were the tuffs of spinifex. Sometimes they made eye-pleasing patterns on the hillside.
Mercifully, the tour was not all walking but was broken up by more of Mike’s anecdotes. At one site he found a mother and child diprotodon skeleton, just metres apart. When the local residents found out about the fossils and how they must have died together, they called it the Madonna and Child of Riversleigh. There were also stories told at previously worked sites like Camel Sputum (named by Henk, another palaeontologist, when he was in a particularly bad mood), and other curiously named localities, which together formed a loose history of the dig at Riversleigh. At each site, we saw bones peering out of the limestone, and proving that the ‘richness of the sites’ quoted in numerous articles wasn’t just hearsay.
We didn’t just learn about fossils though. The geologists were hard at work, seeking out flowstone – evidence of cave systems – that could be used to date the sites.
We saw more of the landscape – spinifex and acacia mostly.
And more of the trecherous limestone – I had to watch out for all those holes.
At lunch, our spider expert dug out a hairy native tarantula from under some Spinifex – in the name of research, of course – which became the prime attraction at the dinner table that evening.
All of this was very interesting, but for a person whose idea of exercise is a walk to the corner shop and back, it was also exhausting. I was ready for a big nanny nap. I might have an interest in palaeontology, but a field palaeontologist I was not meant to be.
Static and Silence 