The start of a grand trip - on the Grand Ridge Road

An interesting mushroom in Susan's garden

Wednesday 29th May

The day dawned bright and clear although that was not terribly evident when I first woke.  I became aware of quiet sounds within the house and extricated myself from Susan's very comfortable brass bed in time to say goodbye to Susan and Charles as they were leaving.

The previous evening Charles had shown me intricacies of his sophisticated coffee machine so I enjoyed a leisurely couple of cups of coffee and breakfast and by 9am I was heading out of the door to realise why I had been cool inside - my car said 5 degrees and there was a very heavy dew, so I needed to deal with window visibility before braving Melbourne traffic.

Rolling green hills

The traffic wasn't too bad and Google maps took me on freeways and highways, from which I diverted for a few minutes to fill up with petrol at the excellent price of marginally under 180c/l.  I only wish we could pay that price in Tassie!

I was most delighted, on the approach to Warragul, to see a sign for The Grand Ridge Road!  Following the sign, I drove through rolling, rural, green landscape to another sign marking the start of the The Grand Ridge Road! Much easier and more auspicious than my attempt to drive this route in the other direction last year - from the Eastern end signage seemed much less obvious!

Steep ferny gullies

The entrance to Mount Worth State Park

Following the signs to Mount Worth State Park I wound my way around a series of improbably steep and ferny gullies to finally find the entrance to the park, guarded by the most magnificent Blackwood tree, and a very nice picnic area.

Cyathea Australis

It turned out that Mount Worth State Park is renowned for its ferns, which were just fabulous! The tree ferns, of course, dominated by Dixonia antarctica - Tassie's well known soft tree fern, but also present were a significant number of Cyathea australis, the rough tree fern, and I do love Cyathea - it is so 'tidy' - it doesn't have its dead fronds hanging down like an untidy skirt, it just throws them off and so you have a beautiful trunk, quite rough because of the where the fronds were attached, but extending up towards the sunlight with just the healthy fronds showing

Austral Filmy Fern

There were, of course, lots and lots of epiphytic and ground ferns and loads of fungi and I took way longer than I should have to do the walks but enjoyed them enormously.

I investigated a couple of the old mill sites - the place had been heavily logged a century ago and mills had abounded. The bush is, thankfully, claiming back its own, albeit in place with intrusive weeds.

A lone fallen Fieldia sp blossom 

When I finished my walk there was a small school group returning to the car park - friendly teenagers who were at an outdoor school for a couple of weeks and who'd had lovely time 'doing all the tracks on the map'. They had also appreciated the ferns and the fungi.

After chatting briefly with them, I retraced my route back towards the The Grand Ridge Road to come across a red car and a black, parked nose to nose on the side of the road, but the giveaway that not all was a substantial portion of the front of the black car was located behind it. I stopped to inquire and while nobody was hurt, the car was not in good shape. Thanking the young chap for his advice to drive carefully on gravel roads (at least, much more carefully than his brother had been), I proceeded.

Trevorrow's mill as it was

Remains from Trevorrow's mill

Back on the Grand Ridge Road I enjoyed the scenery - hills rolling away quite steeply on both sides at times, and sometimes so steeply that where the cultivation had been done along the contours of the hill, it looked a little bit like mini terracing.

Mirboo North Mural

We had a beautiful blue sky, it was a lovely day for a drive, but despite being clear the horizon is tinged with a brown-ish color and I suspect that generations to come will not know what a pure blue sky is, which is such a shame.

Mirboo North Mural

I proceeded towards Mirboo North, deciding to not go to Mossvale Park, as I'd spent too long at Mount Worth. At Mirboo North, I did the requisite walk up and down the main street to look at the murals - some of which were rather lovely and then made my way, despite google maps' best efforts to send me around in circles, to Milleara Gardens and its friendly hostess Helen, my camping spot for the night. I set up in daylight but sometimes after six realised it was decidedly chilly and I was tired, so after a very quick, light meal I tucked into my sleeping bag with a book, and was soon asleep.

60m of Mountain Ash

Burrowing crayfish hole