Goobang National Park; an important remnant of the SW Sopes of NSW

The Central Western Slopes of NSW are part of the great grassy woodlands that once stretched from northern NSW  to southern Victoria and into South Australia. They grew on fertile deep soils which soon attracted farmers and graziers and now very little of the original woodland is left. On the rocky hills and ridges that dotted them grew a different vegetation, the open forests dominated by different trees. These were more likely to escape widescale clearing but were still heavily logged for building, fence-posts and firewood; not much of them were actively protected in formal reserves. 

In the extensive plains of the Central Western Slopes - the transition from the near-coastal ranges to the great western plains which extend to the Indian Ocean - there are just four national parks, Weddin Mountains (8300ha), Nangar (9200ha), Conimbla (8500ha) and Goobang, which is by far the largest of them with 42,000ha. Each of them comprises a mountain range, with some fringing woodland (especially Weddin Mountains and Goobang) surrounded by mostly cleared plains.

Looking west from Caloma Lookout in the northern section of the park. 
The woodland fringing the range ends right on the park boundary.

Goobang NP in the Hervey and Curumbenya Ranges, east of the busy Newell Highway
 between Parkes (bottom left of the map) and Dubbo (further north along the Newell). 
Ideally a reserve will have the minimum ratio of boundary to area (ie a circle or square)
 but we must be grateful for what was available in 1995 when the park was gazetted. 
Map courtesy of NSW NPWS.

And here's a view from the west looking across to the range. Again the island nature of the park is evident. The remnant paddock trees are all that is left of the original woodlands, that were teemingly diverse. That is the sad story of most of those woodlands.

We stayed at Greenbah campground which has only four campsites; as with all NSW (and I think now all Australian) park campgrounds, booking is essential but as with many inland parks there is only a modest booking fee to pay. You can't book a specific site, so are relying on other people not turning up without booking. However it's not a busy campground, especially during the week. The Wanda Wandong campground in the north is larger and apparently caters more to family groups, especially from Dubbo; we've not stayed there. Greenbah though was a delight, quiet except for the birds, which were abundant. At one stage I sat in my chair in our camp and counted at least 15 species in about 30 minutes.

The activity was mostly in the grassy open forest beyond our trailer; behind the camera is a large
open grassy area with tables and fireplaces (below). 

Looking across the open area towards our camp (back right).

And from now on this will mostly be a photo essay.   

In the range (where most of the road access is) the open forests typically comprise
Scribbly Gums E. rossii, White Box E. albens, Red Stringybark E. macrorhynca and some
other eucalypts, including ironbarks, plus areas of callitris pine.

Old Scribbly Gums along the Burrabadine walking track. There are relatively few 
such older trees after more than a century of local felling.

Ironbarks (both Mugga Ironbark E. sideroxylon and Red Ironbark E. fibrosa are present).

A small sheoak Allocasuarina diminuta, growing on a gravelly ridge near 
to Caloma Lookout and forming a distinct heathy vegetation type.

A small inland cycad Macrozamia secunda, which I think is the only cycad to grow
in the Central West. I used to think of cycads as being near-coastal plants
and was surprised to find it out here, but I now know that it's fairly common
in these drier forests. 

Peak flowering seems to be in September, but doubtless extends at least into early October too. Here is a Goobang bouquet for you, starting with some of the many superb wattles. 

Mudgee Wattle Acacia spectabilis, one of my favourites.

Hakea Wattle Acacia hakeoides; the name is perplexing as hakea foliage, like that of the
wattles, comes in a very wide array of forms.

A spectacular mass flowering of Western Silver Wattle A. decora.

Deane's Wattle A. deanei, which is found on the western slopes from central Queensland to Victoria.

Sandstone Boronia B. glabra, always a welcome genus to see! Family Rutaceae.

Pink Phebalium P. nottii, a truly striking plant and one which perplexed me mightily at the
time. It was only when I got home that I was able to identify it; in my ignorance I'd
always thought that all phebaliums are cream or yellow. Same family as boronia.

I think that this prostanthera is P. howelliae, but would be happy to be corrected. 
In the mint family, Lamiaceae.

Slender Westringia W. eremicola at Caloma Lookout. Also Lamiaceae.

Common Fringe-Myrtle Calytrix tetragona; a common and widespread species but always welcome.

 

Hill Teatree, formerly Leptospermum trivalve but apparently now known as
Gaudium divaricatum. A common shrub in Goobang and coming into flower
a week or so ago. Plus a bonus wasp coming in for a nectar hit.

One of the bush-peas Pultenaea cinerascens, limited to the western slopes and
here at close to its southern limit.

A hop bush Dodonaea heteromorpha; we're looking, not at the flowers which are 
wind-pollinated and inconspicuous, but at the colourful papery winged fruit.
This species is restricted to the Central and Northern Western Slopes.

 

Seven Dwarfs Grevillea Grevillea floribunda, one of my favourite grevilleas and not
just for its whimsical name. It is found in remnant forest throughout the western slopes

Hop Goodenia G. ovata, common and widespread and the only shrubby goodenia in the region.

Silky Purple-flag Patersonia sericea, with a pollinating hoverfly casting a
shadow on the petal.

Pale Sundew Drosera auriculata, which grows in nutrient-leached wet areas and
supplements its nutrient requirements by attracting insects (including many ants)
with a sugary solution in the leaves. The long sticky fibres close over, trapping the victim,
and the sweet lure now begins its other job of dissolving the body.
The flower is held high above the leaves - it doesn't want to eat its own pollinator
(at least not until it's done its job).

The sticky fibres at different stages of closing over. The black blobs in the lowest
and furthest right leaf are trapped insects.

Western Donkey Orchid Diuris goonooenis, a very handsome inland donkey orchid
of the slopes and ranges.

Pink Fingers Orchid Caladenia carnea, probably the commonest and most familiar of
south-eastern Australian orchids. But that doesn't mean we should ignore it!

Grasstree Xanthorrhoea glauca with a full magnificent flowering spike. 
This species is widespread, mostly west of the ranges. For close-ups of
the flowers, see the next two photos of pollinators.

It seems a logical segue to go from that photo to some pollinating insects.

Hoverflies, Family Syrphidae, on the grassree spike, which comprises thousands of 
tiny flowers; grasstrees are in the broad and informal lily group of families.

Australian Painted Lady Vanessa kershawi on the grasstree spike. 
(Also, inevitably, another hoverfly - they really are ubiquitous around flowers.)

Red-necked Wallaby Notamacropus rufogriseus in the campground. A common 
and widespread wallaby but I always enjoy them.

Shingleback Lizard (though I still think of them as Sleepy Lizards from my 
South Australian childhood) Tiliqua rugosa. One of our largest skinks and full
of surprises eg they mate for life! A bit more about them in an old post here. 

Male Spotted Pardalote Pardalotus punctatus, a common species that is often more
readily heard than seen. But sometimes you get lucky.

Pair of Galahs Eolophus roseicapilla. If I were inclined to anthropomorphism I might
suggest this looks like a domestic disagreement that has reached a stalemate.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Cacatua galerita dazzlingly catching the early morning sun.

Willie Wagtail Rhipidura leucophrys on its exquisite spiderweb-bound nest very close to our camp.

OK, that's four very common and familiar birds; now for one that definitely isn't.

This little glory was the highlight of our camp. On consecutive days he flew in and 
foraged quietly on the ground for grass seeds, fluttering up briefly when I pushed
my luck in trying to get a bit closer to him. He's a Turquoise Parrot Neophema pulchella,
surely (and of course subjectively) one of Australia's most delightful birds and tiny,
not much bigger than a Budgerigar. When the English colonists began exploring the new
Sydney colony this was one of the commonest parrots they found, in the open woodlands.
Such woodlands are scarce now, but the 'Turqs' are scattered from south-east Queensland
to Victoria, though mostly in NSW

Well I hope I've managed to convince you to put Goobang on your 'to do' list, especially if you're in my part of the world. You won't be sorry. Thanks for reading.

***I'M GOING TO BE AWAY FOR A WHILE, ON AND OFF, BUT MY 
TIME BACK IN CANBERRA IN BETWEEN TRIPS WON'T BE ENOUGH TO ALLOW ME
TO PREPARE ANOTHER POST.
I'LL BE BACK THOUGH, HOPEFULLY WITH SOME NEW MATERIAL! ***

 NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 19 NOVEMBER

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Queensland's Channel Country#1: landscapes and plants

I've mentioned here before my love affair with south-west Queensland, a vast and varied area which is somehow noticeably 'different' from adjacent NSW and South Australia. An important reason for this is that a large part of it forms the bulk of the bioregion known as the Channel Country for the complex network of braided flood channels that cover the area of some 200,000 square kilometres. All these channels flow away from the sea, mostly ending in waterways such as Cooper Creek, and the Diamantina, Georgina, Thompson, Barcoo and Warburton Rivers, which ultimately flow (occasionally!) as far as Kati Thanda - Lake Eyre in South Australia. Waterholes may be deep and almost permanent in streamlines, or ephemeral after rains.

We can really only get a sense of the complex tapestry of the channel pattern from above; here is an aerial photograph, courtesy of Wikipedia.

 However it's only down on the ground that we can get the detail of the tapestry.

Little Black Cormorants Phalacrocorax sulcirostris massing at Cooper Creek near Windorah.

Early morning on the Barcoo River in Welford National Park.
Here, and in subsequent photos in this series, the dominant waterside
trees are River Red Gums Eucalyptus camaldulensis.

Waterhole on Morney Creek, west of Windorah.

Ephemeral waterholes in the inter-dune swales west of Windorah.

Frances Waterhole, Welford NP.

Sawyer Creek, Welford NP.

Channel Country bioregion, map courtesy Wikipedia. This post focuses on the
Queensland portion of the bioregion, which accounts for most of it.

As in many previous such posts I've got enough material for two posts, so shall do that again rather than turn this post into a marathon. So today some landscapes and plants, next time some animals.

We've looked at some water features - rivers, creeks and waterholes - that are probably the essence of the Channel Country, but there is a true wealth of landscapes in between them. I've already mentioned the River Red Gums that are quintessential to the waterways, and here are a couple of other important Channel Country habitats - arid and semi-arid woodlands, dominated by a few more key tree species, and grassy plains.

Mulga Acacia aneura east of Windorah. This habitat covers some 25% of arid Australia.

Mulga flowers; the long thin phyllodes may vary, but the flower spikes are
distinctive (though not unique to Mulga.)

Gidgee Acacia cambegei and Coolabah Eucalyptus coolabah, growing near Morney Creek,
a hundred or so kilometres west of Windorah.

Gidgee is a favourite of mine, though one of its other names is Stinking Gidgee, suggesting that others are not so keen. It does have a strong odour, especially after rain, but to me it's like vegetable compost and not especially unpleasant. I've camped near many a Gidgee stand, and it's also perhaps the best firewood I know - it's dense and burns hot and slowly, so we use very little in an evening. It tends to grow in dips where water occasionally collects, and near watercourses where it gets overflow water from time to time. Coolabah, which appears often in Australian folklore and song (though I suspect that most of us wouldn't recognise it), has similar requirements, growing by occasionally wet watercourses and out on mostly dry floodplains. 

Flowering Gidgee, Morney Creek.

And just because I can, here are a couple more photos of these trees, River Red Gums at dawn and Gidgee in the evening, at the same site at Morney Creek.

There are also swathes of grassy plains, especially to the west.

Mitchell Grass plains Astrebla spp., Welford NP. There are only four
Mitchell Grass species but between they cover a huge area of cracking clay
plains across dry Australia.

Spinifex Triodia spp., near Farrans Creek 150k west of Windorah.
By contrast with the Mitchell grasses, spinifex grows on sand,
both plains and dunes.

Such dunes can be found rising from the plains in many parts of the Channel Country (and beyond of course) and can be rich red where there is iron present or paler, yellow to almost white.

Morning dune still covered in tracks, west of Windorah.

Vegetated dune (in fact nearly all them are) near Farrans Creek.

Which seems to provide a segue to introduce some other interesting and attractive plants of the Channel Country, though obviously it will be a very random and limited selection! There are no natural barriers between the Channel Country's habitats and the surrounding deserts and arid woodlands, so many of these plants grow widely across arid Australia. Some other trees first.

Ghost Gum Corymbia aparrerinja, west of Windorah.
(Though there is a chance that this is actually Dallachy's Ghost Gum C. dallachiana.
The Atlas of Living Australia suggests that this would be too far south-west,
but the nearby Welford NP Management Plan lists C. dallachiana
as the ghost gum there. I should have looked properly!)

Desert Bloodwood Corymbia terminalis east of Windorah.

Emu Apple Owenia acidula Family Melicaceae, east of Windorah.
In the same family as Red Cedar, this small tree adapted long ago
to a drying Australia and let the rainforests retreat without it. The fruit
is apparently edible, though I've also heard that it's hallucinogenic,
so won't be trying it any time soon. It is found widely in drier
Queensland and Central Australia.

Lolly Bush Clerodendrum floribundum Family Lamiaceae. The 'lolly'
name is for its looks, not edibility. This small tree has a surprising
distribution, growing at the edge of rainforest on the east coast,
and right across the dry tropics. This one was on the edge of a dune
in a sandplain in Welford NP.

Lots of shrubs of course.

Sandhill Wattle Acacia ligulata, Farrans Creek. Found throughout the Channel Country
and indeed most of dry Australia.

Desert Rattlepod Crotalaria eremaea, on a red dune east of Windorah.
This pea shrub is always found on sand, especially dunes, throughout Central
Australia, south-east to the Channel Country.

Green Birdflower Crotalaria cunninghamii, another in this genus, also
closely associated with dunes and sandy deserts. It's one of the most
strikingly unexpected flowers I know.

And another spectacular dune-dweller, Sandhill Grevillea G. stenobotrya,
Welford NP. Found from the Channel Country to the Indian Ocean.

And one of my very favourite Australian plant groups, up there with orchids and banksias, the eremophilas (ie the 'desert lovers') are found in various habitats in the Channel Country and well beyond it. The common names often include emu-bush (for a mistaken belief that their seeds rely on passing through an Emu's digestive tract to germinate) and turkey-bush (probably a reference to bustards, which were often referred to as 'Plains (etc) Turkeys', and possibly for the same reason as 'emu-bush').

Bignonia Emu-bush Eremophila bignoniiflora, west of Windorah. It grows
throughout the Channel Country along water courses and on flood plains.

Harlequin Bush Eremophila duttonii, Welford NP. Very striking when in flower,
found on sandy soils throughout central and south-eastern arid Australia,
and scattered in the Channel Country.

Crimson Turkey-bush Eremophila latrobei, west of Windorah.
Very widespread in inland Australia and a very beautiful flower.

A yellow form of Spotted Emubush Eremophila maculata, east of Windorah.
The species grows across most of the continent, and can have flowers that range from pink
through to red, as well as yellow and even mauve (though I've not seen many of those).
Moreover they may or may not have darker spots in the tube. It is the basis of most
eremophila hybrids sold in nurseries. Below is a more typical red form.

Rose Cottonbush Gossypium australe, west of Windorah. In the hibiscus family,
this lovely shrub is also closely related to cotton and to the very similar
Sturt's Desert Rose G. sturtianum, the Northern Territory floral emblem.

And of course there are many herbs, including a large number of ephemerals that flower following the rains. Daisies feature heavily among these.

Tangled Burr Daisy Calotis erinacea near Windorah, above and below.
A very common and widespread desert burr daisy; see also in the
photo of the dune at Farrans Creek above.

Soft Billy Button Pycnosorus pleiocephalus, a plant of the south-eastern drylands,
here at Morney Creek close to its northern-most distribution.

Large White Sunray Rhodanthe floribunda, also at Morney Creek.

And finally examples of some more very attractive Channel Country herbs, albeit subtly so in some cases, from six different families. All these were growing in the Windorah area.

Flax-leaf Indigo Indigofera linifolia (Family Fabaceae) which is found in a range of habitats
across the deserts and into the tropics, as well well beyond into southern Asian and Africa.
(I don't know how carefully those far-flung populations have been compared; if not it may be
reasonable to suppose that more than one species is involved.)

Poison Morning-glory Ipomoea muelleri, (Family Convolvulaceae) also widespread
in central and northern Australia. The foliage and seeds are said to be toxic to stock,
though Indigenous people from the Kimberley are reported to eat the tubers.

Long Tails Ptilotus polystachyus (Family Amaranthaceae). This genus, widely
known as mulla mullas or pussy tails, is common and often forms extensive swathes
after rain, right across the arid lands.

Small-beard Fanflower Scaevola parvibarbata (Family Goodenicaceae)
is a herb of the eastern inland.

Lifesaver Burr Sida platycalyx (Family Malvaceae) is quaintly named for the shape
of the fruits, which form a torus when completely dry. This genus too is
widely found inland.

Nardoo Marsilea drummondii growing alongside Cooper Creek after flooding.
This herb grows in floodwaters and subsequent muds, the dormant spores having
being triggered by inundation. The spore-bearing bodies, the sporocarps, lie
dormant for decades if need be, awaiting the next flood.

Nardoo played a key role in one of the great Australian folkloric tales of heroic tragedy - the Victorian Exploring Expedition of 1860-61, better known as the Burke and Wills Expedition, which sought to find a route from Melbourne to the north coast. The tale has been told many times and you can easily find the details if you wish. However the essence for our purposes today is that it did end tragically - six of the seven remaining expedition members died on Cooper Creek in the Channel Country on the way back. It was not an inevitable tragedy though, it was very largely due to the ignorance, arrogance and intransigence of their leader, Robert O'Hara Burke.

 

While awaiting rescue on the Creek, the expedition used the abundant nardoo sporocarps as flour and ate lots of freshwater mussels and, we were always told, starved to death. It doesn’t make sense. The local Indigenous people ate both these items, and even showed the Europeans how to prepare them. And in that is the essential clue – because Burke of course could never conceive that a mere native could tell him anything of value.

To cut it short, they died amidst obvious plenty, not of starvation but of beriberi – the symptoms, of leg paralysis, extreme sensitivity to cold and breathlessness, are described perfectly by Wills in his journal. Beriberi is vitamin B1 (ie thiamine) deficiency. By coincidence both the mussels and nardoo spores contain thiaminase, an enzyme which destroys thiamine. Over time the locals had learnt this, doubtless painfully, and had worked out techniques to destroy the thiaminase. They roasted the mussels on the fire; Burke and co ate them raw. The Aboriginals made a watery paste with the nardoo spores - the water neutralises the enzyme - but the explorers made a dry flour with them. 

 

Ah well, perhaps a red herring in today's post, but hopefully of some interest. 

 

The Channel Country's story is much bigger than this one and it is grand and glorious country. If you didn't already know about it, I hope that I may have piqued some interest in you to consider planning a trip out there. Meantime I hope to see you again next time when I will introduce some of the animals of the Channel Country.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 13 FEBRUARY: link here

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