Nature parks ... and a Nice walk or 2 ...

... IN the Nature parks, of course!

Yes - this is my slightly  VERY late N post for Wednesday ABC

I did have one saved (from the last time around the alphabet, or maybe one or 2 before that) but it would take me ages to find all the photos I would want to put in that one (because it is about stuff that has been made and photographed over several years) ... and I was thinking about posting about some quilts I have Not finished ... but I have also Not taken photos of them ... although I should be out working on at least one of them Now! (Naughty me - in here on the Net again ... lol)

but ... I decided to post about a couple of Nice walks I recently went on, in one of our local Nature parks - while the subject is still sort of New ...

We have a few Nature parks here in Canberra ... the Nearest one is the Dunlop Grasslands - where some of this Nice walk with the dog happened ... but this post is about another one - Near where I work actually ... after living in Canberra for a few years, and then working Nearby (and moving up this end of town as well) I had still Never got around to walking around in the Aranda bushland, or on that side of Black Mountain, until Now (well a month or so ago actually)  ... in the last month or 2 I have been for about 3 walks in the area!

The first one was just the opening of that Garden Tea Party textile art exhibition, Nearly 2 months ago Now - I actually walked there from work - through some of the Aranda bushland/foothills of Black Mountain (I am Not sure where the Aranda Bushland ends and the Black Mountain part starts - lol)

The Next one was about 2 weeks ago - when there was an annual wildflower walk that someone organises (not sure who - I think I found out about it from a landcare newsletter or something - I have known about it in the past but it has always been when had somewhere else I had to be at the time - this time I didn't ;-)
There were lots of orchids and other wilflowers (even more than when I had walked through there a few weeks before) ... I think I only took about 600 photos! - I LOVE digital cameas!!! LOL

Then ... one day last week I decided to get DH to drop me off at work and then when I finished work I would walk through the bushland and around/over one or other side of Black Mountain and in towards the middle of town (where we went to a rather Nice little resteraunt for tea) and get him to pick me up from wherever I had got to when he rang to say he was on his way in - which just happend to be up on TOP of Black Mountain - LOL (well - by the time I got to a track that I knew would go to a road I could be met at, it was just as quick/close to go to the top of the hill as it would be to go around it ... so up I went ... talk about a good work out though! - it gets steeper up near the top)

I also took a fair few photos that day ... so I have rather a lot to choose from, to put in here - LOL
(hmmm - I suppose I should actually put that last lot ON to the computer or I will Not be putting any of those here Now ;-)

[Andrea goes and fiddles with photos, hits "publish" on this post that I just typed up for one of my other rather Neglected blogs (which could have been an N post, but I wanted to post this one so I didn't Need to use that one) and goes and puts on another load of washing, hangs up the other one ... probably Need to hurry up and mow the lawn Now - before it gets dark - too ... and by then the dog will "Need" his walk, and I have some other stuff that Needs doing ... so it will probably be later in the Night (or maybe even the Next day before I get back to this]

It is now a day or 2 later ... and I am still doing a coupld of those things ... just sticking a photo on that post on that other blog before I publish it (it is uploading at the moment) ... some washing got done, and a few of the other things, and the dog got a walk (in fact he has had 2 or 3 walks since I typed the first half of this post) ... but the lawn still needs mowing - lol

Ok ... now for the photos ... which I could have put in amongst the text I suppose ... but I wrote all that before I dug around in my photos so it is probably easier, and will make more sense, to just do it this way ...

So ... starting with the wildflower walk a couple of weeks back ...

btw - yes I took a LOT of photos, but I will not try and put too many dozen here - LOL

- I have dug around and chosen a few that were pretty and/or interesting, and in focus ... (some of the close up ones are not - what the camera thinks I want to focus on and what I actually do want it to focus on are not always the same thing - lol)

These should all be clickable - so you can click on them and see the full size photo (or you might want to right click and open them in a new tab/window so you can flick between the big photo(s) and this page (to read my descriptions/etc.)

anyway ...
here are some Wattle flowers

half in focus and half out ... that tends to happen with macro shots - because of the shallow depth of field.

hmmmm - I didn't notice when I took the photo (was probably in a hurry to take that and dash over to the next flower or something - lol) but those yellow fuzzy balls are not just evenly round fuzzy balls ... they have thick and thin patches and longer spikey bits. hmmm - I would have to look at one more closely to be sure, but I think the shorter fuzz is probably the stamens (the male bits) and the fewer longer bits the pistils (female bits) ... but because I am only looking at the photo and guessing - I could be wrong - whatever part of the anatomy - they are quite pretty actually ...

and next ... these look like something I grew up calling "egg and bacon flowers"

 I guess one can see where that name came from - lol
(drats ... now I am starting to feel hungry!)

and here is a photo of a pile of trees ... because I like trees ... and because this is sort of what the area mostly looks like, but more flowers (and mabye a few less trees) in some patches.

and ... not only were there interesting and pretty flowers - there are also funghi - quite tiny, these ones ...

 I think they were less than an inch tall. (those sticks in the photo are leaf stems and very tiny twigs/bits of dry grass/etc.)

there was some Lichen too ...

and ... something ...

 ... which doesn't look like it has flowered yet - the interesting purplish brown bits look like buds where whatever it is will eventually have flowers.

There were lots of orchids - like this spider orchid (I think that is what one of the experts said this one was - so many plant names and only one brain to store them in - lol)

 and ... right where a group of people sat down (and nearly sat ON them) for morning tea:

 ... some other variety of orchid, quite a rare one apparently.

I guess one could be forgiven for not noticing them in amongst the grassy stuff:

 (yes - there are orchids hiding in amongst that other stuff, which isn't actually grass, btw)

but whatever it is - this spider seemed to be happy living there:

and talking about almost sitting, or stepping on, flowers and stuff - this was the walk where I almost stood on that Lizzard - there is a photo of that in my recent "L" post (a couple of weeks ago) ...


   - I was sneaky - because it was already uploaded for that other post, I could just use the "add image" thingy to grab it and put it here - because it just puts in the link to wherever blogger already has it stored (in my picassa web album, which blogger/google created for me when they decided to make blogger images work that way ... I think I might have even gone and looked at it once ... lol)

now ... where was I?

here is another photo of trees ... and a lot of flowers ...

 ...which kind of don't look that spectacular in the photo? - but - as is the case with a lot of flowers that often go unnoticed - when one looks more closely ...

... they are really quite pretty:

 (yes - these are the same as the blue ones in the bottom left hand corner of the photo before this one)

and here - a couple more things that an unsuspecting person might step on, without even realising they are there:

 - some kind of interesting green orchid (might be a hood orchid?) ... and a parrot feather ... and - also a reddish colour - some Drosera - otherwise known as Sundew

ah ... I uploaded all the photos that are on this post, then had another dig around and found a couple more photos of  sundew ... but the photo uploading thingy seems to be having a hissy fit and won't let me browse to actually find and select any more photos to upload ... pity ... there was a nice one of sundew with purple flowers ...
oh well - back to the pile of photos I had already uploaded/put in here:

... some more Sundew:

I am not sure if this is the same species as the red ones or not ... well I wasn't - but now that I have just googled it and read about them (on the wikipedia page that I have now linked to above) and noticed the flowers in my photos are different colours - I am sure they are at least 2 different species - there were both red and green leaved ones where we went on the wildflower walk, but I took this photo a week or so later while walking the dog down near a local pond. (this lot may be a 3rd species, different than either of the ones at the bottom of Black Mountain)

... Here is some more - closer up - showing the sticky droplets of whatever it is on what I think are actually leaves (they are not flowers - you can see the white flowers on the green one in the previous photo) - the sticky stuff is what they use to help catch insects - yes - this tiny and rather pretty thing is a carnivorous plant!

 That close up photo is one I took a few days ago (Friday, I think) when I got dropped off at work in the morning, and then when I finished work I walked back toward the area where I had gone on the wildflower walk ... and took another hundred or so photos.

Here are some more orchids

and here I am most of the way up Black Mountain ... that tower is at the top ...

(the path is steeper than it looks in this photo too!)
and this is a veiw from the carpark at the top (yes - there is a road up the other side - that is where DH drove up to collect me ;-) One can also go up inside the tower and look out, but I didn't this time - because that costs money - lol

if you look in almost the middle of this photo, there are buildings ... and if you click on the photo so that you get to see the full size version, then you might be able to see a bunch of buildings with dark green roofs (right in the middle of the photo - closest to where I am taking the photo from - to the left of the green oval, which doesn't look oval but you can see the patch of green grass colour) - those green roofed buildings are the school where I work - where I had just walked from!

(btw, there are some roundish hills behind that dead tree branch - I live over in that direction somewhere in the dark green stuff this side of the hills)

er - talking about where I work ... I have to get up and go there in the morning ... so why am I still UP? LOL

oh bother ... just went to check the ABC Wednesday page and I have missed the chance to add this to the linky thingy - O is already there and the N one is closed ... oh well ... if I do my O post really soon (like maybe tomorrow) then people might notice this one is before it - lol
... not that it matters - most of my reason for posting these silly alphabet posts was because it is a good way to motivate me to at least try and post something to my blog every week or so, rather than ever few months or "whenever" ...
I guess I don't HAVE to blog ... but I want to - I have about 10 ideas for things that I really want to post to my blog, and have been meaning to for ages but have kind of not got around to it yet (for most of them it is because I need to either take photos to go in those posts, or spend ages digging around in my photos trying to find the photos to go in them, but a couple are just because I kind of never went got around to it). I also have a few other ideas half written/etc and saved as drafts (again - mostly waiting for me to take/add photos or something) ... and I have a few ABC ideas saved as half written drafts too ...

anyway ... this is Not the hour I meant to be still awake at ... Ooops - Naughty me? lol

- time for this Night Owl to say Night Night ...