Toolangi and Healesville

Yesterday, we returned to three of my favourite photo locations near Melbourne to see how far autumn fungi had progressed and to see if there were any good specimens to photograph.

Near the little town of Toolangi (not far from Healesville) is the Wirrawilla rainforest boardwalk which follows the side of Sylvia Creek. Some of the boardwalk is  currently closed for renewal but we still had access to this delightful Myrtle Beech rainforest around the other side of the circular track. There were plenty of fungi specimens and some good forest landscapes. I had my doubts about the presence of fungi as this yer has been so dry. We have only had about 55 mm of rain this year, here in Melbourne.

4270143

4270122

4270183

4270173

4270050

4270188

Near Healesville is Donnelly’s Weir – It diverts water from Donnelly Creek, a tributary of the Watts River just downstream of the Maroondah Dam, into the Maroondah Aqueduct. It is a part of the system that supplies water to the city of Melbourne and is managed by Melbourne Water. It is often visited by students studying Melbourne’s water supply because of its easy access and information signs. It was heavily impacted by the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires and was closed for many months afterwards. The immediate areas were burnt out and all of the facilities had to be replaced after the fires. It was too early and dry for any fungi there, but the weir looked nice with some good reflections on a still day.

4

4 2

Further along the highway towards Narbethong is a picnic area called Fernshaw. It’s the site of an old town that was settled in the 1860s. It originally provided good country for orchards and berry growing. The location was at the foot of Blacks Spur, with Mounts Juliet and Mondah rising on either side, providing spectacular scenery. There were nearby fern gullies giving rise to the name – ‘shaw’ is old English for thicket or wood. By 1875 Fernshaw had a post office (1865), two hotels, a school (1871) and stores. It was famed for its beauty, attracting many tourists. In 1886 the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works began work on the Watts River water catchment scheme – later to become Maroondah – and the Board obtained approval for the catchment country to be reserved and kept free of settlement. This required the removal of the Fernshaw township, which was completed by about 1890.

4270209

4270220

4270216

 

2 thoughts on “Toolangi and Healesville

  1. WOW Bruiser, you are indefatiguable. And bounddless of energy and enthusiasm. Very grateful for these “works of photographic Art” and accompanying script.

  2. Funghi, ask and Ye shall receive. Let ve the fairy red one. None at Fryerstown this year.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Local Getaways

Paris at the Bendigo Gallery

We have just spent a few days in Bendigo (Victoria’s third largest regional city) where there is still a strong history of gold mining. We had a sunmptuous dinner at our favourite regional restaurant (The Woodhouse) with its fine steak meals as well as a few hours at the Bendigo Gallery which is one of […]

Read More
Local Getaways

More Exploration Around Creswick

We had a lot of rain overnight and  we watched it move across our area this morning on the weather radar on my phone. It had cleared by mid morning so we were clear to do some more exploring. Rather than head west as we did yesterday, today we drove north towards Castlemaine. Our first […]

Read More
Local Getaways

Revisiting Central Victoria’s Gold Towns

As someone who prefers landscape photography, this area around Creswick is a bit frustrating. There is very little stunning scenery – just a lot of ‘goldfields country’ that is characterised by scraggly forest of box and ironbark trees. The topography is rather flat and the soil is a golden colour that is very stony and […]

Read More