Friday was a little brighter and more sunny than the previous days so I took the opportunity to head for the hills and hunt for some fungi to photograph. I had explored a couple of potential sights a few days earlier and was reasonably sure that we could find some good specimens near the towns of Toolangi and Healesville (about 80 km out of Melbourne)
Near Toolangi is the beautiful Wirrawalla Rainforest Reserve where a boardwalk has been built beside Sylvia Creek. Some of the fungi was very obvious but I did appreciate Jill’s spotting ability too see some of the smaller ones. I spent the whole morning here on my hands and knees in the damp forest. I was using my 30mm macro lens.
By midday, we were getting rather hungry, so we drove on to Healesville for lunch and then on to a picnic area called Fernshaw on the Maroondah Highway where the highway crosses the Black Spur. This once had a little settlement that serviced the horse drawn coaches travelling north from Melbourne but all the buildings are gone and all that is left is an area populated with European species of trees. In the far corner, we found some larger species of fungi growing along the edge of the clearing.
Near Healesville is another Picnic Area at Donnelly’s Weir and we stopped off there to see what we could find before heading home. This little weir once formed a part of Melbourne’s water supply with water being diverted from here to a larger reservoir. We found some more fungi in this area.
No attempt to try some on toast?