Gurulmundi State Forest
The self drive trail through Gurulmundi State Forest was described as a wildflower tour but, according to the brochure, there were historic sites along the route as well. We added plans for a day trip through the forest to our Miles itinerary; after plentiful rainfall in spring the native flowering plants would surely be in bloom and a history lesson is always interesting.
We headed out of town on the bridge over Dogwood Creek and turned north onto the Leichhardt Highway. We passed the site of the old Dalwogan railway siding, now in the Miles Historical Village, and crossed, for the first of several times, the Dingo Barrier Fence.
The sign at the Gurulmundi turnoff pointed the way ahead.
After 30 kilometres we stopped at L Tree Creek, named after the trees marked by the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt in 1844. We couldn’t find any of Leichhardt’s trees but we did spot some bright red flowers along the creek bank – our first wildflower sighting!
Up the hill away from the creek we found more. The crimson blooms of hundreds of kalanchoe plants dotted the landscape, from the edge of the road far off into the bush.
A little further on crimson was replaced by gold. Spiky shrubs, their branches crowned with clusters of tiny yellow flowers, flourished in the stony soil on both sides of the road.
We hadn’t yet entered the state forest and already we’d found some beauties and our first historic site. With 13,000 hectares of forest still to explore we were confident there would be more.
How wonderful to be exploring that interesting area. I don’t know any of those places on your map! The recent rains are sure to improve the bounty of wildflowers.
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Yes there’s been some good soaking rain out there so the flowers will be lovely.
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What a great trip and the photos are brilliant. Such wonderful colours everywhere. Be careful exploring, all sorts of vicious nasties could be lurking in that grass.
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Don’t worry, I never go walking in long grass. Especially on a hot day. You never know who you might meet.
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Beautiful flowers, and I love the names of the towns on the map. All of our towns are names after towns or people from England.
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Our place names are either connected to people or the places they came from, like yours, or they are Aboriginal names. Gurulmundi means long and low in the local indigenous language and is thought to refer to the mountains of the Great Dividing Range which are on the horizon.
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this sounds like the start of a fabulous adventure
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Yes, it was a wonderful day!
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Carol,
Finally, locating you.
Thank you for liking my photos and for your nice comments. I am now 75 and looking at changing my photographic itinerary. Best of luck to you in your own endeavors.
Walt (photos shown on instagram sites “massabesic audubon center” and “nhscmga”.
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Hi Walter and welcome! I love seeing your beautiful photos on the NHSCMGA Instagram page.
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Wildflower tours are great, we’ve done a couple and you get to see all those small country towns which are so historical
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Yes, we explored an area we wouldn’t normally have gone to. It was a lovely day.
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🌸🌼 🙂
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Like a grand treasure hunt! How fun to find these blazes of vibrant colour.
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It was fun. We weren’t really expecting too much as it was so dry then, so to find this variety of flowers was a real treat.
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