Gundabooka National Park; another dryland treat

When I was a young feller growing up in Adelaide, the phrase 'back of Bourke' (an idiom for somewhere very remote and 'outback') evoked strong emotions in me; I really wanted to explore 'out there'. I did so eventually but it took a long time (and I confess that the town of Bourke no longer seems so remote!). In this semi-arid area of central northern New South Wales are several valuable reserves, one of the largest and most impressive of them being Gundabooka National Park. This park, along with the adjacent Gundabooka State Conservation Area, covers some 94,000 hectares of varied dry country landscapes about 70km south of Bourke, to the west of the highway to Cobar. Moreover the Toorale National Park and State Conservation Area, across the Darling River to the north-west, adds another 85,000 hectares to form a massive reserve system. 

(There is a significant and unfortunate caveat here though: in a State Conservation Area minerals and petroleum exploration and mining 'may be permitted', which would considerably reduce the value of the reserve. As far I am aware no such activities are currently planned for these areas, but the option is there.)

The park was gazetted in 1996 and covered 46,000 hectares, comprising the former pastoral leases of Ben Lomond and Belah; the 20,000ha of Mulgowan station were added to the south in 2002. Finally Yanda's 28,000ha in 2005 became the Gundabooka State Conservation Area to the north.

Mount Gunderbooka (yes, this is a variation on the spelling of the park itself) from
Little Mountain Lookout, near the Dry Tank picnic area and campground in the
centre of the national park. The mulga plains in the foreground are typical of much
of the park.

Approximate position of Gundabooka, just south of Bourke.
(It's fuzzier than I'd like, apologies.)

I have found it surprisingly difficult to find a usable map (or indeed any map) of
the park - this is a real flaw of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife
Service (NPWS) web site (probably a spinoff of their lack of resources). This one is
taken from the management plan of the park, but in the process has lost
most of its useful definition. To give you a slightly better idea I've added the red numbers.
1 is the main access to the park, along Ben Lomond Road off the Bourke-Cobar Highway.
2 is the Dry Tank campground and picnic ground (the only campground in the
national park itself), and the walk to Little Mountain.
3 is the Yapa (Mulgowan) art site on Mulareenya Creek.
4 is the Bourke to Louth road along the Darling River.
5 is the Yanda campground on the Darling River in the State Conservation Area.
(Actually if you click on it to enlarge it, it's not too bad.)

We were only there for three nights recently, so didn't explore nearly all of it, but focussed on the area around the campground and the Yapa art site. Next time we plan to camp at the Yanda campground on the Darling in the state conservation area. Our timing was a bit unfortunate, in that the growth from earlier rains had already flowered and seeded, and the burst from recent rains which had closed the park until shortly before our arrival was still coming. Since then further rains have created another excellent wildflower cover I am told!

Drifts of mulga phyllodes (pseudo-leaves) across the ground left by recent flash
flooding in the campground; new growth is coming through. 

As mentioned earlier, much of the park is dominated by woodlands of Mulga Acacia aneura, including dense stands of regrowth around the campground.

Our quite idyllic campsite among the Mulga. Between and behind the individual sites
the regrowth was dense enough to make walking through it difficult; you get some sense
of this in the background here. It will thin naturally as the trees mature.

Much of the Mulga was flowering, in response to the earlier rains.

Scattered throughout the park is Bimble (or Poplar) Box Eucalyptus populnea; both the species name and the alternative English name refer to the rounded leaves which supposedly resemble poplar leaves (personally I think it's the other way round, but that's just me). It's one of my favourite eucalypts.

Bimble Box, above and below.

This tree was growing along the very pleasant walking track to Little Mountain Lookout, which leads out of the campground/picnic ground.

There was however one worrying aspect about the trees that we hadn't previously encountered.

After a while with no such ambushes we decided that perhaps they were only dangerous
during breeding season?

It's a five kilometre return walk, mostly flat until a short moderate climb on a well-built
track with many laid sandstone steps (some of which slabs are clearly very heavy indeed),
onto a gravel ridge which looks out over the plain to the Gunderbooka Range.

Mount Gunderbooka across the mulga from Little Mountain Lookout.
It is the highest point in the vicinity, 500 metres above sea level
and some 300-350 metres above the surrounding plains.

On this gravel ridge the vegeation changes, with a shrubby understorey, including at least two or three species of emu bush, Eromophila spp., though only one was flowering while we were there.

Crimson Emu (or Turkey) Bush Eremophila latrobei, truly a spectacular flower.
Eremophila, along with Banksias and the orchids, are my favourite Australian flower
groups. This one is found right across the dry inland of Australia.

Narrow-leaf Waxflower Philotheca (formerly Eriostemon) linearis,
another shrub in flower at the lookout when we were there. It is scattered
in rocky habitats in dry inland NSW and South Australia.

The other walking track we took was the short one to the Yapa (Mulgowan) art site in the far south of the park, accessed by a well-signposted road to the south off Ben Lomond Road (7.5k from the park entrance, 12k back from the campground). When we were there we encountered a sign warning of ‘rough road, drive with care’, but in the event it was smoother than the Ben Lomond Road. The walk itself is only 700 metres each way and quite easy on a good track over a low rocky ridge to the Mulareenya Creek; the warning on the website about this 'challenging yet rewarding walking track' should be treated as a somewhat extreme example of the precautionary principle. This is a site of great significance to the Ngemba and Baakandji people, who co-manage the park through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Head of NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, which commits both parties to cooperatively manage both the cultural and natural heritage of the reserves.

A feature of our walk was the profusion of flowering Wonga Vine Pandorea pandorana sprawling over rocks and other vegetation.

Wonga Vine is a spectacular climber when in flower.

A typical scene along the walk, with reddish sandstone boulders,
Wilga Geijera parviflora and White Cypress Pine Callitris glaucophylla.

The view across Mulyareena Creek to the art site among the boulders and cliffs opposite.

The art is fenced for protection (pretty much universal now for publicly accessed sites) but not interpreted; I'm not in a position to know whether this is intentional or if the resources have simply not yet been made available. There is no restriction on photography however.

At the start of the walk, by the carpark, is a very pleasant new covered picnic area at the edge of a grassy woodland flood plain.

Trees present include Coolabah Apple Angophora melanoxylon, Bimble Box and
the somewhat curious Supplejack Ventilago viminalis.

This Supplejack tree began life as a small climber, scrambling through other vegetation,
then later developed a woody trunk to become a tree. Its family is Rhamnaceae.

Needless to say there was plenty of animal life but it was mostly windy and cool, so no reptiles were active. Here are some, in no particular order, except that I've left the birds to last this time. The walk to Little Mountain produced a few interesting small animals, most of which I can't properly identify.

My uneducated guess for this cockroach is Panesthia australis,
a nymph which hasn't yet developed wings.

My best offering for this one is one of the slant-faced grasshoppers, Family Acrididae.

A very hairy caterpillar which I certainly wasn't going to be touching!
However a passing flock of Black-faced Cuckooshrikes was feeding on something
on the ground and it could well have been these, as they are known to be
among the few birds to be able to do so.

Mulga Ants nest Polyrachis sp. They typically cover the mound with dropped Mulga
phyllodes; it is often asserted that this is to reduce overground flooding, but
as far as I'm aware this is just speculation.

Termite runway covered in soil to protect them from sunlight.

This spider wasp dragging an unfortunate paralysed orbweb spider was one of the
first animals I saw in the park, on my way to the toilet soon after arriving.
The spider's fate is to provide a living larder for the wasp's underground babies.

The only good think about this photo is that it was the only goat we saw in the park;
it was on top of the cliffs that houses the art site, which is always another reason to fence such sites.
This part of the world is notorious for extremely high numbers of feral goats which are
devastating the Mulga; some properties allow their numbers to build up,
then have them mustered for the goat meat industry.
The park is obviously doing a good job of managing them.

Most camp sites seem to have a memorable 'camp bird' species, which we come to associate with the camp as being regularly present there and often particularly 'friendly'. Dry Tank had two, we decided, of dramatically different sizes.

Emus Dromaius novaehollandia, father and one of his sons, approaching us
cautiously in response to my waving a hanky at them (it works from a car window too).
This photo also gives some idea of the dense Mulga around the camp ground -
it took a while to get even this clear a shot of them. They seemed to spend
a lot of time hanging around the camp, though there was no indication that
they were used to being fed.

Part of the same family crossing the camp road early one morning.

Red-capped Robins Petroica goodenovii were the other camp bird. We'd never
seen so many in a campground before! However as this photo suggests they
weren't nearly as easy to approach as the Emus were.

I've just realised that the rest of these bird photos were all taken around the campground too, with the exception of the falcon.

Brown Falcon Falco berigora sitting by the road on the drive back from the
Yapa art site. A common raptor over the entire continent, but no bird which is
being so obliging deserves to be ignored.

White-browed Treecreeper Climacteris affinis, the smallest of the Australian
treecreepers. On our first afternoon in camp there were several of these arid
land specialists on the tree trunks in and around our camp. I was quite excited
as I've generally found them to be wary and not easy to photograph (though that
could be just down to me of course). They would certainly have been eligible
for 'camp bird' status - except that we didn't see them in camp again for the
duration of our stay! (This incidentally is another name in the 'not
very useful' category - their eyebrow is actually not particularly conspicuous.
The boldly streaked undersides and face are the real giveaways.)

A bold little female Splendid Fairywren Malurus splendens inspecting me on
one of my early morning wanders. The male of the family hadn't yet moulted
into his spring finery, though others elsewhere on the trip had done so.

This Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo Chalcites basalis was calling from an exposed perch,
which is typical cuckoo behaviour. The fairywrens will need to be especially vigilant
when they start breeding!

And lastly this is a particularly abiding image for me of those morning walks,
a gorgeous male Mulga Parrot Psephotellus varius sitting up in the sun
and calling loudly.

I hope I can encourage you to put Gundabooka on your 'to visit' list. Even if you're not able to camp there next time you're in the area, it's an easy day trip from Bourke and well worth the effort - and there's more to see there than we managed this time too. Thanks for revisiting this beautiful park with me.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER

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